


Molded By Earth, Loved By Wind

by twixt_haw_and_thorne



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AU in which Duscur and Faerghus are equal in military strength, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Bottom Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Canon Divergence - The Tragedy of Duscur Never Happened (Fire Emblem), Crest Experimentation, Don't worry I swear Dedue and Dimitri have a happy ending together, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Fabricated Duscur Gods/culture/OCs, Feral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, Knotting, Loving Marriage, M/M, Mental Illness, Mentioned canonical deaths of minor characters, Mild Blood, Mild fantasy racism/racist language, Mild starvation, Mild suicidal/morbid ideation, No Officers Academy AU, Non-explicit attempted rape of an unnamed character, Non-explicit mentioned eye removal, Sad with a Happy Ending, Scarring, Slavery gets abolished, Soft Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Sweet Sex, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, VERY mild mind-break, a/b/o dynamics, a/b/o gender sexism, and, ritual marriage-partnership, slavery (of unnamed characters), very mild torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:49:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29747310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twixt_haw_and_thorne/pseuds/twixt_haw_and_thorne
Summary: King Lambert of Faerghus and High Chieftain Mordane of Duscur are assassinated in the middle of a diplomatic gathering of peace. Each country blames the other, and as the years pass and tensions mount, Rufus of Itha steals the throne from under Lambert's gentle son Dimitri, giving him over to his loyal mage for Crest experimentation. After all, in Faerghus the weak are trampled, and that especially includes those who present as an omega--which is Dimitri's unfortunate fate. In order to avoid a war with the Duscur people, King Rufus sends his nephew to the new Chieftain as a political hostage.Dimitri arrives, expecting to be locked away and tormented for the rest of his days, but when he and his newly assigned guardian Dedue discover the truth behind the assassinations, Dimitri beseeches the help of a Duscur Goddess to bring justice to his homeland instead of the ravages of war.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22
Collections: Dimidue Big Bang 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the Dimidue 2021 Big Bang with art by the fantastic @naoscifra! Apologies for being a bit late, but my first artist bailed on me and @naoscifra graciously stepped in with their amazing talent! There's a lot of sadness and angst, but the ending is very joyful and happy! I hope everyone enjoys this very long peek into my favorite kind of Dedue/Dimitri relationship, which is mutual trust and respect and luuuurve! <333

What the prince remembered of his father’s death were the flowers. Trumpeting white and blooming loud, he thought they were too noisy for a funeral. Everything about it was full of noise and movement; what should have been a solemn procession felt too much like a parade to him, even as a child who had experienced parades. Mourning blacks and appropriate whites were all in attendance but there were far too many _people._ Far too much music and chatter. His hand engulfed by the serious grip of the man who was a second father to him, he wanted to clap the other to his ears, to tell them all to shut up, to go away.

“Dimitri.”

Cutting through the crowds, the voice was as black as his clothing, as black as his hair, pulled tightly back. Felix had never been much for large gatherings like this, but he could hardly refuse to show up when his own brother was laid on the parading pyre alongside the corpse of the King. Rather, he already _had_ refused to show up, which was why his presence was so confusing… and so necessary to Dimitri’s survival.

“Felix,” replied the man holding his hand. It felt wrong to hold the hand of _Felix’s_ father when Dimitri could break the ranks of mourners, rush forward, grab his own father’s. He could see it, peeking out, pallid and grey. Ugly. Not like his father’s at all, somehow. “You came.” Rodrigue almost sounded relieved. After all, he wasn’t very well going to drag his teenage son kicking and screaming to his brother’s funeral if he refused to appear.

Felix ignored him. He wasn’t here for _him._ He grabbed Dimitri’s other hand, the one that hung loosely, holding a flower, and pulled him away. Dimitri let his hand slip out of Rodrigue’s and they ran away together, a flower clasped and delicate between their hands. It was hard to run in these new boots, they hadn’t been broken in yet, but he followed, not knowing where Felix was taking him and not caring too.

The way the cliffs jutted over the burning souls of the funeral pyre made for a perfect view of the smoke as it climbed its way to the clouds, his father and Glenn mixing with the stormy weather. That seemed right, seemed fair. Here felt sad, felt somber, with only the toughest tufts of beach grass breaking through the slate for a breath of air, with no loud, noisy people loudly mourning their king. Dimitri could fold up here, could bury his face in his knees and cry. His father was gone and no amount of reassuring from Rodrigue and from the servants and staff around him was going to bring him back. He knew that even at thirteen. He knew that long before then.

Felix stood next to him, appearing ready to fight, as he always was these days.

“They’re saying it’s Duscur’s fault,” he said.

Dimitri didn’t answer. It didn’t matter whose fault it was. In those young days, he didn’t realize how sinful it was to have such a thought. In those young days, it was _Felix_ who embodied the bloody ideals of Faerghus.

“But we can’t fight them back, that’s what they’re saying.”

_Why would we?_ Dimitri didn’t ask. He continued to cry, because that was what he came up here to do.

“Duscur is too strong. It has all the metal for our weapons. That’s what they’re saying.”

_That’s what they’re saying._

“But I’m going to fight.”

That made Dimitri stop. “How?”

Felix was unbothered by the logistics of his revenge, only that it was certain. “I’m going to get stronger. Stronger than anyone else. And I’ll lead the fight into their country and make them pay.” His pale little face was pinched in certainty. Felix was always certain and Dimitri was always uncertain, that’s how it felt sometimes.

“Why?” Dimitri looked up, his carefully washed face now ruined by salt. “It can’t possibly be the whole country that’s responsible.”

_“I don’t care.”_ Another long-held Faerghus ideal. _It doesn’t matter who we fight or how long we fight as long as we can call it honorable._ Felix glared at him, daring him to disagree. Dimitri quailed under that look. Felix had never looked at him like that before. “If we do nothing, then there’s no justice. Do you _want_ that? Don’t you _care_ that your father’s dead?”

“There’s nothing wrong with peace,” Dimitri heard someone say. Surely it couldn’t have come from his own mouth. He meant to say, _of course I care, you’re right, we should fight them no matter the cost._ That’s what he would be expected to say. That’s what he _should_ say.

Felix’s nose scrunched up again in disapproval. But loyally, he didn’t leave his side. When Dimitri got back to his room and looked down, he realized that the flower was still clenched, dead and ruined, in his fist. He had forgotten to let it go. And then he forgot to let everything go.

* * *

It shouldn’t hurt to lose something he never wanted, Dimitri tried to reason with himself. But someone who had so little who was trying his best to hang onto anything he could, he couldn’t reason with himself. Neither could anyone else do it for him either. He tilted his stark white face up to Rodrigue as if to plead. He wanted to ask why, he wanted to know how this could be acceptable, but he was a good child. So he just nodded. “I understand. After all, I am too young to be King.”

  
And the faces around him, they nodded too, everywhere he went, echoing him. _Too young, too young to be King,_ they agreed. Thirteen was no age to be ruling the country. And he didn’t want to anyway. He didn’t want to rule, he never did. He was just born into it, like his father, and all of his predecessors until his very first, Blaiddyd. And he was sure none of them ever took a leadership position at _his_ age.

Yet Felix was always finding things to be angry about lately. “You just gave in?” he snapped after cornering him in his room. “Without a fight?”

Fight, fight, Felix was ever trying to start a fight. “Why would I fight?” Dimitri asked, sinking to his bed because he already felt too old to stand upright. “Thirteen is too young to rule.”

“So _what!?”_ Felix threw up his hands and Dimitri was reminded by his sharpness and suddenness that now Felix carried a sword on his hip wherever he went. He carried a sword, he always wanted to fight, and he was always so _sudden._ Meanwhile, Dimitri shrank. He carried no weapons, he was too tired to fight, and he felt like he was going so slow, wading through a swamp of shadow while everyone raced past him. While Felix raced past him. He was shrinking as Felix swelled, taking up more space, defying his constraints while Dimitri’s grew tighter around his chest, like the leather straps of the heavy armor he’d one day be expected to don.

“You could’ve said _no!_ You could have said _anyone but that stupid lout!”_

Dimitri shrank again. “Uncle Rufus?” he asked, just to make sure they were talking about the same person, although it could hardly be anyone else.

Felix gawked at him. At one time, he would smile at Dimitri, would follow him everywhere, holding onto the hem of his tunic so they were never separated. Dimitri missed the way his eyes sparkled like old amber then. Now they were a gleaming bronze blade, too keen to touch, too keen to avoid. Accusing him. _Blaming_ him.

Dimitri didn’t even realize that Felix left until he was all alone. Because Felix was too sudden for him to catch up.

* * *

He received many letters, but it was so rare that he would reply to them. There was no reason to go out, no reason to leave his room or pretend anything or anyone was waiting for him. Despite evidence to the contrary. Even _Felix_ wrote him letters, now that everyone had gone home and were all scattered to the four corners of the country. And Felix didn’t often make a habit of writing _anything_ down, insisting that he could just remember it.

Dimitri wished he was that resourceful. He felt his mind had become a sieve that the tragedy had just swept under and cut the bottom from.

He was forgetting all sorts of things. At first, it was just little things like maintaining his lance before and after practice so the edges rusted a bit from being hefted into the training dummy. Although perhaps it was just the rain. Then the hole in his mind began to suck things into it. He forgot to eat. He forgot how to hold a cup properly. His hands would often shake when he took his meals with his Uncle Rufus, the new King Regent of Faerghus. He forgot to bow to his Uncle when he stepped in the room too. Rufus didn’t like that.

“Are you ill?” he’d demand.

“No, Uncle,” Dimitri would respond. Perhaps he was. Two weeks was considered by the peoples’ standards to be more than enough time to grieve a loved one. It wasn’t enough, and Dimitri was only given a three-day reprieve before he was told Rufus would be taking the crown. The rest of the country was allowed to mourn their fallen King, and they did by smearing ashes on their faces for a fallen warrior, rending their clothes and wailing in the streets. But Dimitri was not given four days to mourn his father.

He forgot to write to his friends and eventually, they stopped writing him. More and more, the shadows enveloped him, his once strong young body began to waste away as the darkness took whole chunks of his flesh with them into the corners of his room when the sunlight banished them for the moment. The shades were not faces anyone but Dimitri could see, stand-ins for friends that had gone away, gone about their lives.

And he forgot his name. They would call him in the hallway and he would keep walking, head way down low as if following the scent of something lost, a shaggy yellow bloodhound with hollow eyes no one could ever see because he forgot to cut his hair. Without Rodrigue and without Gustav (who had mysteriously disappeared after the Tragedy), there was not one person alive or within a fifty mile radius who would step in to care for him.

“Duke Blaiddyd?”

Except Tarim. She remembered. She cared. And when it took her three times to call his name, she remained patient and unoffended. A boy on the cusp of his fourteenth birthday, she thought to herself, should not hang his head like that. She kept the armful of scrolls and books she was forever carrying close to her chest and smiled at him. He was not so much younger than herself, Tarim thought, and he could use a friend.

“Oh… yes, miss…?” Dimitri honestly wasn’t sure who this was or why she thought he’d be any use in conversation, but he had been so startled by the title ‘Duke,’ which was what he had been demoted to for the present, that he forgot that was part of his name. Without Felix, Sylvain, or Ingrid around him anymore, he was _Duke_. Not Dimitri. Not Mitya.

The kindness of Tarim’s smile deepened and Dimitri could see the shadows leap at the corners of her mouth. She had introduced herself to him already, twice this week in fact when she saw him haunting the many stone corridors of Fhirdiad’s famous castle. But her gentleness did not waver with him, like a lost bloodhound he may be, but no less deserving of that gentleness than a pup to her.

“Tarim,” she said simply, her voice soft as a meadow’s sunbeams as though he might run crying off. “I was appointed to the council of advisors by… by your father.”

_Father._ Not ‘the late King.’

He blinked. He didn’t straighten his back, but he lifted his chin to look at her. It was the same reaction he had the first two times they met when she mentioned Lambert. She acknowledged what he had been to this boy, a father to his son, not a King, not a leader, not the Sword of Faerghus. Just the man who guided his hands when they gripped the lance, or scolded him for running in the hallways and knocking over a tray of expensive Dagdan plates, or held him in his lap. She knew he must not have anyone to grieve with. Tarim couldn’t be his friend, but she could give him a little reprieve, offer to share the heavy stones he must carry on his back.

“Oh,” he said again, but it was so different from the first sound he made that Tarim couldn’t help but let her smile swell. “I see. It is a pleasure to meet you, Councilwoman,” he said, and remembered to bow to her, forgetting her name already, Tarim assumed.

“A pleasure to meet you as well, Duke Blaiddyd.” She saw no reason to remind him of their previous meetings. “May I ask where you are headed this morning?” It was still before the dawn would banish the external shadows that only plagued Dimitri at night. The ones he carried within his breast had yet to show any signs of fading. Tarim was becoming used to meeting him here in the dark; the first night she had seen him, she had nearly screamed, thinking him some sort of wraith by the shambling way he moved.

As with the first two times, he didn’t seem to know how to answer. He wasn’t headed anywhere. There was nowhere for him to go. He should have all the freedoms a young orphan Duke might have, having inherited some of his father’s fortune, but he had not touched a single crown. There was no need to. Everything he might find outside he could find here, his shadows whispered to him. _Stay in, stay in, you’re safe here._

But even if his meetings with Tarim had leaked through the sieve of his mind, the muscle of his body was all too ready to remember. He held out his arms. “May I carry some of that for you, Councilwoman?”

She had said no the first two times. This time, she said yes. Three times was too many to let this poor ghost slip by without reaching out to him. “Thank you so much, my lord,” she smiled, hoping to shed a bit of light into his life or onto his predicament, as it were. She only gave him half the load, which he carried with ease. It seemed his rumored strength, passed to him through his father’s blood, had not diminished even though his frame had thinned. Beneath his tunic, which remained the same unwashed tunic she had met him in twice before, he was bone and sinew. There seemed to be no flesh, no youthful fat, nothing holding him together but skin. “You are too kind.” 

“Think nothing of it,” he mumbled, and she wondered if _he_ thought nothing of it.

Tarim was too young to be a councilwoman. She was freshly nineteen after all, which would have been an acceptable age to become King, but not to be an _advisor_ to the King. To Faerghus, this made sense. One must have experienced much and navigated through life’s challenges to be wise enough to guide the powerful hands of the King into a prosperous future. But Tarim was clever, and she had been steered under King Lambert’s gaze by her opportunistic father. It was a good opportunity for her to challenge the evils of the world, as injustice had sparked her fury ever since she kicked her way out of the womb and learned that her sweet, sickly mother was poorer than her neighbors. Too poor for medicine.

Lambert saw that spark and had been fanning it to a full fire. But he’d died before he’d fanned those flames enough. She was at the verge of being removed by the old men who constituted the entirety of the council save herself. The King Regent certainly didn’t like her ideas _nor_ her ideals, and despite being his advisors, the rest of the council was keen to seize Rufus’ every word and support it with the columns of their praise to curry the favor he had neither earned nor inherited properly.

She stood outside the council door now, early as always, spending all of her nights later and later, delving into the policy and history and statistics of the land she so desired to shape into a glorious, green place. The others of the council had formed their own private club to drink and gamble away their evenings on the backs of the hardworking people of Faerghus. Most of them had been older than _Lambert’s_ father. She stood there, knowing it would be another day of tugging white beards to turn their heads, to scream until they deemed her worthy of any attention, and to fight and negotiate away her carefully crafted ideas until it was the barest skeleton of what she hoped for. And that was on a good day.

“Again, thank you,” Tarim said, taking the books back, ignoring the dents where his trembling fingertips had pressed too much into the hard leather. No one but council members were allowed in the throne room this early. She had a feeling that soon _she_ would not be allowed in this room.

“Think nothing of it.” At this point, he was just letting the conjured words fall from his tongue to be picked up or not. He didn’t know what he was saying, did not know he was repeating. He turned away.

“Wait.” Tarim dared to put her hand on him, touching the crease of his elbow that was damp with the sweat from what little sleep he could muster. “My lord, forgive my boldness. But I wanted to ask…” Even Tarim didn’t know what she was going to ask. “Are you all right?”

_Are you ill? Are you_ **_mad?_ **Rufus would say.

“No,” he agreed with her tone, tilted downward as though he was looking down on her, and yet their heights were much too similar. And saying no that way, admitting that he was lost, it was permission for Tarim to finally do something.

* * *

Lambert Egitte Blaiddyd was a man shaped by every harsh winter of the country. He was a man who never heard the word ‘no,’ who trampled over complaints with lance in hand. He knew how to survive when the temperatures could swipe the tips of fingers and toes away, when the mountains of Faerghus groaned under the weight of the winter and finally shook off the ice and snow, burying entire villages under its purveyance. He knew which way was north when the game was thin and when the wolves were so rabid with hunger that they would gnaw on cold branches to simulate the comforting feeling of bone between their fangs. Lambert was a man of blood, who led his Shield and his people against the constant bombardment of southern Sreng tribes and committed such brutal genocide that the remaining people had to reshuffle the numbers of their tribes and form new ones, terrified of the blonde men at their border. He was a man who gobbled up their country and staked his flag into its heart, moved his troops in, and _dared_ anyone come take the rigid ground out from under him.

Lambert was a great man. Perhaps not a _good_ one. But in Faerghus, he was the shape of their honor, their pride, their bloody, bloody pride. He looked the way they wanted him to. He dressed the way they wanted him to. He acted the way they wanted him to, even throwing down his sword and _tackling_ a diplomat from the Adrestian Empire across a banquet table when he had the audacity to ask a simple question regarding their hostile border encroachment policies.

Lambert was an _alpha._

When he was not yet thirteen, his body transformed according to the commands of his biology, but it might as well have been the whims of the people. As if they were the voice of development, of evolution, he changed, broader, taller, deeper, stronger. And that was how it always was with nature, wasn’t it? Change was inevitable. Nothing that remains static remains at all. And this transformation was a joyous thing for the people of Faerghus, to watch the man who was to guard and unite them strike forth, tower over them like a god of war. For that’s what he was, in the end, a god of destruction and death. No one could say just how much of what he did was by his own willpower or by the digging, dredging hormones of his body commanding him, _fight, fight, fight._

It had been since the days of old, since the days of Loog the Blue Lion that the leader of every Blaiddyd House was a pinnacle of this achievement. All rulers must be Kings. All Kings must be alphas.

Rufus was a beta. It wasn’t quite as good and, under normal circumstances of the Kingdom being completely without leadership, he might not have been anyone’s first choice. But Dimitri was a child, mourning the loss of his father _instead_ of calling for revenge, and so Rufus of Itha would have to do. He was Lambert’s brother after all, _elder_ brother too. There were many requirements for a King in Faerghus, and out of four of the most important ones (that a candidate should bear the blood of their ancient hero Blaiddyd, that he was male, that he presented as an alpha, and that he bore the Crest of Blaiddyd as well), Rufus only met two of the qualifications. Lambert had borne them all and then some, the charisma and power of a golden-fringed Lion, a beast of strength and honor.

Dimitri bore three. But he also bore the strain of youth, of awkward gangly limbs. The Kingdom expected that one day, when he was older, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, only son of Lambert, would present all the telltale signs of molding into an alpha male, and this they awaited with great anticipation, for a ruler who would stand in the shadow of Lambert and guide them towards victory in all battles, quell all weaknesses, and stride forward with justice and honor. Great anticipation indeed.

This presentation, however, was awaited with great _anxiety_ by Rufus of Itha, for he had _finally_ claimed the throne that he saw was his birthright, and he did not want the brat of his sickening brother to stand in the way.

“What do you mean there’s _nothing?”_ he demanded.

The court mage simply blinked, slow and irritated. She was not intimidated by this man. Power changed hands at the whims of a breeze, and she held many secret powers Rufus would never possess. He knew that too; as soon as she cast her annoyance his way, he faltered and hastily tried to retreat with his words. What a coward. “I mean, nothing at all?” he hissed anxiously. “Surely magic had advanced to the point of--”

“The arcane arts,” Cornelia interrupted, neither intimidated _nor_ fond of being interrupted. “Are not meant for practice on human beings.” She moved closer, like a wind that carried the scent of decay. Rufus stepped back and she enjoyed the taste of his fear. “Of _course_ there are ways, you stupid man. Mages who are not so particular about the boundaries that stand in their way climb the mountain anyway. I myself was born weak, Rufus. And look at me now.”

He didn’t have to look. He could just tell. Even so much shorter than him, she towered over him in power. He wanted that power. _Craved_ it. He did not know he was just a pawn, but he knew he would not be King for long if something wasn’t done. “Then why are you denying my request?” he asked, his voice quieter.

“Oh, because I’m not a _fool.”_ Cornelia tapped his nose, a distressing signal, and he more than half expected to be turned to ash on the spot. “If the boy presents, and he likely will soon, and then that designation changes, I will be the first one they blame, and rightly so. I have no desire to be burned at the stake.”

  
“Do it _before_ he changes then!” Rufus half growled, half pleaded. “He’s still a child!” 

“Sixteen is hardly a child,” she pointed out, tapping her smirking lip. Three years had gone by since the unfortunate incident of Lambert’s death, after all, and the boy they talked about was becoming a man She was enjoying Rufus’ panic, enjoying that power she held over him. “But that’s neither here nor there. It is dangerous to tamper with a system when I don’t know how it will develop _without_ my interference. That produces too many variables for my liking. And again, if he should fall ill and die because of it, I am blamed.” 

“Then--”

“But you think too _small,_ my whining jester!” she laughed openly in his face. “You do not always require my craft to accomplish what is needed. The first thing one learns of magic is that she is a fickle mistress. You must learn _cunning_ before you learn magic, and you must learn _consequence_ before you can learn the sciences.” She brushed past him and she smelled like death and honey. “A well-placed whisper, _my King,”_ she purred. “A rumor or two will do the job. The people of Faerghus are like smoke. They follow the fire and will soon be consumed by it.”

* * *

“Disband the whole army?” Dimitri laughed for the first time in years. “There’s no way King Rufus would allow it.” He’d ceased to think of the man as his uncle, now that he had not been allowed to call him that; not to mention a complete lack of familial activity or affection between them.

“It’s radical, I’ll grant you that,” Tarim laughed right back, allowing the mirth at her own expense. “But that’s a long-term goal. And believe it or not, it _can_ be accomplished!”

Dimitri thought Tarim was so smart. So witty and bright. She was everything he was not. And she was so full of energy, whereas he could hardly find the will to leave his bed most days now. “All right, then. I want to know how. Perhaps my future is too clouded by strife. I’d love to see it through your eyes,” he prompted, lifting his lance again and hefting it over his shoulder. He left his room because Tarim had free time, and that was the only reason. The only time he ate was with Tarim. The only time he smiled or spoke was with Tarim. She was his only friend anymore. He had no others.

“First,” she beamed from the bench, watching his near-perfect throw. “You dispense with the draft.”

“And you claim _that_ is not radical for Faerghus?” Dimitri chuckled, struggling a bit to remove the lance lodged in the wood, so great was his throw, so deep was the blade.

“You think?” Still, she didn’t give up. She refused. “Well, then raising the age limit first! No one _really_ wants to send their young sons off to war.”

“Yes they do.” Dimitri freed the blade but broke it from the handle. Holding the two pieces in each gloved hand, he shook his head, misery swallowing every line of laughter from his face. “If a man--or a boy--is killed in the line of battle there is no higher honor for their families.”

“That’s so _twisted,”_ Tarim lamented.

“Is it?” he asked, genuinely confused. “Their families receive money and food for the rest of their lives.”

Tarim shook her head. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she herself was born to this country, so different was her upbringing from everyone else. “No money or even food can replace a life, Mitya.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He smiled again, but it was empty of all but his shadow. “Sylvain used to call me that.”

Tarim watched as he attempted to find a way to fix the lance, decide it was a lost cause, and discard it carefully by the bench, where two other lances lay broken. “They haven’t written?” she asked, feeling small. “Not once?”

He shook his head. “Not since last spring. I received one from all three of them that April. It was a bit strange. But they are all learning to be the retainers of their respective lands now, are they not?” He inspected the keen edge of a fourth weapon. “They are too busy to entertain a childhood friend. Whatever I was worth to them then, it has clearly... passed.”

He should be happy for them. He _was,_ he reminded himself, he _was._ They had moved on. Glenn’s death had not so burdened Felix or Ingrid that they could not live out the remainder of their lives in relative progress--perhaps even in happiness. Thinking of Felix especially hurt. He raced by, raced by while Dimitri languished here, having not left Fhirdiad Castle in three years. And Sylvain, sweet, sunny Sylvain…

Tarim didn’t know what to say. She did not see the knowing looks pass between the court mage and the King Regent. She did not know that they burned all letters that came in to Dimitri. She never realized that workload upon workload was sent to the lands of Fraldarius, Gautier, and Galatea to deter them from having the free time to visit. Tarim didn’t know that they had tried anyway and were turned away at the door. She had nothing to offer him, for she didn’t know herself.

She wanted to say _you have me,_ but it was clearly not enough for him. She could not watch over him at all hours of the day. She wanted to, but she also wanted to shepherd Faerghus towards progress, guide them into the future so none suffered like she suffered. Like Dimitri suffered.

“Regardless,” he said with a little sorrow and a little bit of smiling too. “I am happy for them. They do not need to be dragged down to wherever I am bound.”

“Maybe a ride?” she offered. “We could go outside the walls for once… the flowers of the plains are in bloom. It would be beautiful.”

Dimitri could not bring himself to deny Tarim, his only friend, anything. It was part of the reason that he was out of his room and training at all, because she demanded it. She didn’t mean to, but she had a force of personality where Dimitri clearly had none right now. She could not break lances in half by accident, but she could steer him into eating, into seeing the sun every once in a while.

“Of course, my friend.”

It was the first time in three years he had even tried to leave the walls, and so he was utterly stunned into silence when the guards closed their weapons and forbade him to go through the doors.

“This is Duke Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd!” Tarim snapped, horror-stricken. “He is not some castle _prisoner!”_

“Our apologies, Councilwoman,” the guard said, straight-faced and bored. He wasn’t sorry at all, except perhaps that he had to deal with this when his shift was hours from being over. “King Rufus has forbidden him to leave the castle grounds.”

“King _Regent,”_ Tarim reminded them, but he didn’t say anything.

Dimitri hadn’t wanted to fight in his whole life. His father pressed him into learning, but in all things, he wished only for peace. To run and hide from confrontation, even with a soldier who was so clearly beneath him in station, even with his demotion. But he had just wanted a ride. He had just thought Tarim had been right, that perhaps he should see the mountains, the sun, and the flowers. So for the first time in three years, he fought back.

And he lost. Badly.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri is forcibly removed from the public eye and kept in isolation, neglect, and abuse while Duscur demands reparations for their lost chieftain. Tarim attempts to care for him while Felix and Rodrigue try to fight for him, but when he presents as an omega, he's given to Cornelia as a 'useless heat-bitch' and she removes his eye. Eventually, it is decided he will be given to Duscur as a political hostage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: THIS IS A DARK CHAPTER. It contains some semi-graphic depictions of fantasy slurs, repulsive neglect (bugs and pus), torture, blood, the forceful removal of Dimitri's eye, as well as suicidal ideation. Please, please take care of yourselves and mind those tags.
> 
> If you cannot handle this, just read the chapter summary, it pretty much sums this chapter up.
> 
> I PROMISE THAT THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST CHAPTER. After this, it gets a whole lot better for Dimitri and he is taken care of, I promise, I promise, I PROMISE!

Tarim did not know where Dimitri was. She had searched for four days now tirelessly, and now she sat on a bench out in the rose garden, head in her hands. She had to give up. She didn’t know where they had taken him, and clearly no one was taking care of him because not a single servant or staff member had any clue where he was either. No one was bringing him food, no one was drawing his curtains to let the sunshine in. She had neglected much of her responsibilities as a councilwoman and had missed all four meetings. Not that she cared if they removed her from her position right now. And likely, they were happy not to hear her ‘nagging’ throughout their drunken sit-ins; after all, not one of the other councilors had sent word to her or sent anyone to find her.

She dared not demand to know where he had gone of the King Regent, the guards, or the various other idle nobles wiling away their mornings with wine and one another.

He was gone. He had raised his voice one time and he had utterly _vanished._

“Mitya…” she mumbled to her palms, as if her lament might bring him closer to her, offering to hold her books. She was terrified that he had been executed--but surely, there’d be far more talk among the people if that were the case, wouldn’t there?

And there _was_ talk. Not of any impending execution, but of Dimitri nonetheless.

_Did you hear?_

_I was there._

_What happened? I heard he struck a soldier!_

_Poor boy… he’s disturbed._

She wanted to scream every time she heard it. But losing her temper would not lend Dimitri any worthy allies. _He didn’t,_ she wanted to correct them. _He only demanded to be let through the gate,_ she wanted to insist. Perhaps he should not have raised his voice, but had any other Duke been denied exit from the castle to visit their various mistresses and horses, they’d have raised a much greater (and less politely worded) fuss. But that was pointless to think about, because no other Duke would have been kept trapped in his own home, in his own country.

Rufus had swept in so suddenly, out of nowhere, and swept out again, Dimitri in hand. That was the last time she had seen him.  
And she suddenly raised her head. The garden tower stared down at her in return, windows barred and dusty from disuse. No one maintained the gardens with the tools in that tower anymore. And the groundskeeper didn’t live there anymore.

But she knew who did.

* * *

The garden tower was locked, but not well, and even Tarim’s miniscule strength was lent wings by her frenzy, and she left the old wooden door hanging open as she took the winding stairs two at a time, flying up that spiral staircase to him.

The stench hit her like a stone to stop her flight. Piss and blood permeated the stones and the air, thick and heavy, so heavy she could almost _taste_ it and she retched immediately.

And there he was. Not a sweet child tucked into his bed, but a beast curled into a nest of his own blood-soaked sheets. The pot in the corner should have been replaced days ago. But no one was here to do so. And there was no way to toss the contents out of the window. Old meat bones littered the nest and a rat boldly scurried towards him. He was a beast, but he was not a threat. He lay in scarlet linens that were once white, the rattle of his breath indistinguishable from the rattle of the remains of his meal--the last of which must have been four days ago when he was stuffed inside. He stared at her, his chin slumped against his shoulder brokenly, and yet he did not _see_ her.

No smell could keep Tarim from him.

 _“Dimitri…”_ she panted through the odor and rushed to the cot that was not fit for even the lowest prisoner of their keep. “What have they done to you?”

She grabbed his wrist--too rough she realized too late--and lifted it. The tunic sleeve fell back against his shoulder like a curtain over a dark room, revealing deep, measured cuts that had gone unhealed. Blood and pus congealed in the wounds, festering like the maggots that had spawned in his empty cup, knocked over beside the bed. Whatever had soured this air so badly should have still taken longer than four days to grow. Which means he had been flung into this _rot_ like refuse meant to rot with it.

“Stepmother?” he asked, his lips so dry and cracked that they may as well be the vast desert plains for all their color.

Tarim choked back her vomit, choked back a sob. “Come on,” she said, her voice still strong, strong for him. He was like the dearest brother to her and she had to protect him. She didn’t care what it took.

“Ah, Dimitri, you have a visitor. How nice.”

Of all the people Tarim _expected_ to walk through the door she’d left open, she hadn’t really considered it would be the court mage. She whirled around, but kept a steady grip on Dimitri’s wrist as though he might vanish if she wasn’t feeling his sluggish pulse. “Cornelia?” she demanded. It was perhaps the one person she was most terrified of. Apparently Dimitri was as well, because he used what strength he still had to wrench back his arm and fold deeper into the alcove he made his nest.

“Mm, yes sweetheart.” Cornelia sat an old pitcher of clean water on the dust that made up a dresser. That was all she had brought, though, not food or a bath or clean linens. Tarim made a quick and angry note of that. “I thought perhaps our dear Duke here had been the one to break out of his shelter but a wayward bird has wandered in instead.”

Tarim didn’t know quite what to make of that. “You can’t do this,” she hissed. “You can’t keep him in these conditions, it’s _barbaric.”_

“Settle, little bird,” Cornelia mused, her lips as soft as a rotting log when she grinned. “I had no intention of doing so. But I have only so much free time, and his security is a matter of secrecy. Can’t have little _rats_ sneaking in here for gossip, can we?”

Tarim thought to point out the _actual_ rats that were scurrying around. “So… you just expected him to take care of himself? He’s not well.”

“Of course not,” the mage cooed as she swept forward. It felt like an ominous glide, since her gown was so elegant and long that it hid her slippers. She did not seem to mind dragging the hem of it through the dried blood and bones. “That’s why I can’t have servants take care of him.” Cornelia cupped Tarim’s cheek in her hand, but the councilwoman did not flinch, though she longed to slap her hand away. “What if they were to take _advantage_ of the poor dear?”

“ _I’ll_ care for him,” Tarim bit out her words, chewing off the ends to show her very short displeasure, her very sharp temper.

“Hm. I suppose that is acceptable,” Cornelia grinned, not even bothering to hide that this was exactly what she wanted. “But you will have to give up your position on the council and take up gardening,” she said, gesturing to the roses. “For cover, of course. Can’t have anyone suspect whom you are truly tending, can we?”

The council position, which Tarim had fought so hard for, defended her purpose every day, struggled to tend the garden of humanity in Faerghus, overthrust by stabbing weeds, she gave it up without a second thought.

“Fine.”

“Wonderful,” Cornelia clapped her hands. “I’m so pleased someone will be tending to my little project.”

“Project.” Now Tarim seized Cornelia’s wrist instead, not afraid to break _her_ with her bare hands if she had to. “You did this,” she said, pointing to Dimitri’s naked arm.

Cornelia’s falsely bright mood seeped low until her smile was dark and wicked. She did not like to be touched by humans, but she allowed it for now. Tarim had her purposes and when she was done with, Cornelia would be all too glad to be rid of her. “Oh, my dear. I take samples for his _health,_ love.” The consistent pet names, Tarim knew well, were because she was nothing but a pet to Cornelia. “I take his blood to run tests, to ensure it is not a plague he suffers. It is not _my_ fault he scratches them open.”

Tarim let go of her because there was truly nothing she could do against her. “We both know that’s a lie.”

“Indeed,” Cornelia scoffed, turning, her skirt brushing over the slate like dead leaves. “Enjoy your new room, little bird.”

In the silence that followed, Tarim staring down the spiral stairs like a descent of madness after the mage, she felt Dimitri take a timid hold of her own tunic.

“Stepmother?” he asked again.

* * *

Dimitri’s hallucinations were not only due to a mental break, Tarim knew. She’d spent time with him enough to know while he was not well, he was not so disillusioned to reality as to divorce from it entirely. But he’d go down that road willingly if she did not help him.

He cowered in his nest as she worked. She scrubbed the blood from the floor and the mold from the walls. She dusted off the cobwebs and put in a work order to have the door fixed up with a proper lock and hinges. She replaced the pot and burned the bloodied linens, not only the ones in the nest but the ones on his body. He must be so, so sick, for the former prince let her strip him without a shred for the common Faerghus modesty, standing in the center of the clean floor and looking solemnly towards the bars on the window, the moth bitten curtains of which Tarim had dragged down and burned as well. No curtains. He needed the sun.

She bathed him, scrubbed every inch of him as best she could, ignoring how she _should_ feel about his nakedness since he, too, did not care. He was just a child in need of attention. In need of love. She applied herbs and oils to his wounds, cleaning them out. She was no healer, but she knew better than to leave the pus and dried blood to pack the wound. No, she packed the wounds, so deep, so deep, with cotton instead.

She filled the room with _light._ She gathered all the unused candles she could find and she ensured, as the sun went down on that fifth day, that no natural shadows could fill the corners and gain a foothold to reach for her poor friend. The smell of wax and ink filled the room instead of blood and piss, and she relaxed a fraction after she managed to drag her heavy desk to the front of the garden tower. She supposed she’d have to work down at the bottom while Dimitri remained upstairs. The stairs and the ceiling they cut through were open so… she should be able to hear if he moaned in pain or hurt himself.

She dressed him in a clean white nightgown and lamented silently at the way she could see his ribs and the protrusions of his hipbones through the sallow white skin of his flesh. He looked at her, so gaunt and so ghostly, and she caressed his cheek gently, not in the same way Cornelia had touched her. He leaned into her touch, his dull eyes closing quietly.

“Don’t worry,” she said, fierce enough for both of them. “I’ll take care of you.”

It was when she guided the helpless child to his bed that he finally spoke, with enough coherence that she felt comfortable answering. “But… the council…”

She shook her head. “They weren’t listening to me anyway,” she said, smiling. “You rest. I will keep working. Faerghus will be improved one way or another. There are many ways to influence change.”

“Your dreams,” he lamented, lying down on the clean straw mattress as she tucked him in.

“My dream is not to be on the council,” she told him firmly, almost scolding like a mother hen pecking at her unruly chicks. “My dream is to make life in Faerghus better for everyone.”

And as she took a book to her lap and watched while he slowly, painfully slept, she knew exactly how she was going to do that now.

She was going to make Dimitri King.

* * *

Tarim was completely useless with gardening shears, she learned. Her father had been a messenger and scribe, and she was inkstained by the time she could write. Her hands were meant to hold a pen, not to trim hedges, but she _was_ gifted with reading, so she read gardening books in her free time, when she was not dabbing Dimitri’s forehead with a cool cloth and fussing at him to eat, little by little.

She improved with gardening and he improved his condition under her exhausted but tireless hands. He sat on his bed, his skin a little less pale, a little more like cream under the candlelight. He no longer called her stepmother. It wasn’t that she minded, but she needed him to be well if he was going to be King.

Not that he needed to know her plan.

“Tarim,” he said softly.

“Yes?” she asked gently, looking up from her work. Dimitri had insisted on carrying her desk up the stairs so they could be close together, and had done so when she left even after she forbade him. She would never be the type who was too busy, not for this boy.

“What are you going to do?” he asked hoarsely. “You… you left the council to take care of me.”

This again. She tried to temper her patience, but she was not known for it. She sighed a bit, pushing the pen and paper away. “Mitya,” she said, her annoyance tempered by her affection. “We’ve talked about this, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” he allowed, bowing his head. So submissive. Nothing like his brazen father. Nothing like the King Faerghus wanted. Not even like the King they _needed._ “But I still feel…” _Guilty._

“I’ll get back on the council,” she waved the comment away and reaching for the pen again. As if they could keep her from it forever. “This is just a break. A sabbatical.”

Dimitri wanted to believe her. Perhaps she was like the sister he always wanted. Perhaps she was like the mother he once had. She had sat at his sickbed and given up her dreams for him, _not entirely,_ she insisted, but…

He closed his fist around nothing, imagining the grip of a lance. He hadn’t held one in weeks. Yet there, glowing beneath his skin, the Blaiddyd Crest flowed, angry and neglected. Why hadn’t he been allowed to leave? Why had Rufus taken him here and let Cornelia cut him open? Why? Did Faerghus even miss him? Did his people even _want_ him?

Tarim had thought to sew her own rumors into the garden about Rufus, but honestly… she had not needed to. Rufus was a useless man and a useless King. He spent most of his time drowned in women and wine and all the riches and servants he could not have when Lambert was King. And the people were fools in so many ways like Cornelia had said, like smoke they followed fire, but they began to notice when their larders emptied and the winters blew harder and harder against their empty grain fields. There had been peace when Lambert died, but it had been a newborn peace, the kind that needed nurturing that Rufus did not know how or care to give. Cutthroat thieves and murderers roamed the countryside in hunger like the wolves that started to expand their territory, dragging the sick bodies of the townsfolk into the trees. Riots began outside of the castle of Fhirdiad, outside of the garden tower--small and easily managed things, but Rufus had finally realized he had cause to be uneasy.

And there were whispers from Duscur too, their much stronger neighbor to the north. They still blamed Faerghus for the death of their beloved chieftain.

And that was the problem no one in Faerghus cared to know. Lambert was not the only one to die that day. Mordane, chieftain of the Duscur people and shepherd of their own fearsome warriors, had vanished along with Lambert, her soul whisked to the sky by the shedding of her blood. And as Faerghus had blamed Duscur, Duscur had blamed Faerghus.

Felix may have no longer wished to fight. But Duscur _remembered._

“So what are they demanding _now?”_ Rufus sat in the throne, slouched over like a sack of potatoes. Being King was more exhausting than he had thought it would be. Sometimes, he wished he _hadn’t_ commissioned Cornelia to slip into Duscur and kill his brother. But not often.

One of the councilors pushed his spectacles up on his nose, his glasses so pinched and tight that it could not possibly be comfortable. “They demand, er…” He looked around the table, pleading for help, but he met not a single eye. This was preposterous, this was _absurd._ It would not do, it could not happen and yet…

“Well?” Rufus growled. _“Spit it out!”_

“You, Your Majesty.”

Rufus had expected it would be something grand. Duscur had been demanding reparations for the two and a half years which had passed, but none of their requests were granted. Nevertheless, they continued to send very polite demands in differing quantities, and they were growing less polite. Duscur was a smaller country than Faerghus, but it was more populated, and full of barbarians, as Faerghus popularly claimed; they even enlisted their _women_ to fight, barbaric as they were. Faerghus was in danger. While they had old stone walls and a formal cavalry to keep many threats at bay, they could not afford a war with Duscur. Especially not without a King who could wield _Areadbhar._

Not that Rufus hadn’t tried. He had assumed his brother’s claims that only the Crested could wield it were entirely selfish lies. But very nearly the moment he had picked it up, it had seared his flesh, leaving a lasting white burn, smooth and shining, in his palm. He hadn’t tried a second time. (Of course, with Dimitri’s blood, Cornelia offered to _imbue_ him with the Crest of Blaiddyd, but when he heard the rather lengthy list of side effects, he had quickly declined.)

No, they could not afford a war with Duscur. But _that_ request was preposterous.

“Me?” Rufus tried not to shrink in his chair. He had no doubt that the people, if they knew, might give him up. He did not trust them, as they did not trust him. “My… my head?”

“Oh, _no,_ Sire!” the counselor corrected hastily. “Er… they want you to live among them.” He shuffled the papers. “As it were.”

Rufus barked with mad laughter. “Among the _filthy swine?_ ” But he didn’t say no. Yet. “For how long?”

“Indefinitely.”

Another laugh. Now the whole council was laughing nervously with him. “As a slave, I assume.”

“It only suggests that you will be treated with ‘the dignity and respect afforded every human life beneath the bosom of the god of the sky.’”

“So they want me to roll around in the mud,” Rufus sneered. “Absolutely _ridiculous.”_

Cornelia did not agree. “Well, why not?” She slaved away over a vial of a tiny amount of blood. She had what she needed for now, but she was running out. She’d have to get more soon. She was looking forward to the prospect. She eyed the pacing Rufus over the rim of the vial. “Maybe you’ll enjoy living among the pigs.”

He stopped pacing to scoff at her, checking behind his shoulder to ensure they were alone, a stupid notion given that Cornelia wouldn’t discuss business with him in an obvious location. “This is _serious!”_

“Well, you’ve ignored them before, love,” she dismissed him, turning back to her work, watching the blood boil, leaving behind the precious metals. “What’s so different now?”

“Soon they’ll send _armies,”_ Rufus complained. Such a brat, Cornelia amused herself by ignoring him and imagining how she might torment him in her chambers later. “Duscur will march on Faerghus and we’ll be _slaughtered!_ They have twice the armies we have, and they know no fear!”

“Such is the human life,” Cornelia muttered to herself. “To be in constant struggle. Humans fight and die. It is only natural.”

_“Cornelia.”_

She rolled her eyes and straightened up, seeing that she was not to get any work done today. She _did_ rather enjoy the funding she got from the crown for her work, so she supposed she shouldn’t let a war break out just yet. She was too interested in her current research to find any joy in being prodded to make weapons of mass destruction right now. Although she did rather enjoy the result. “Just send someone else,” she snapped. “A replacement.”

“Who would even be a suitable candidate?” Rufus groaned, sinking into Cornelia’s chair. She’d have to burn it later. “They’d know if we sent a peasant dressed up like a nobleman.”

“Indeed they would,” she nodded. All humanity was beneath her, stupid, but not _that_ stupid. “Especially given how recently they witnessed King Lambert in all his splendor.”

 _“Don’t.”_ Rufus sat straight up, gripping the arms of the chair tightly. “Don’t speak his name!”

She moved on to the next vial. “There is bound to be some noble you can strip of their title and send. Tell them the sacrifice is good for their country. Now _get out._ I’m busy.”

Rufus lamented and feared and fretted and twisted his gut as he tried to think who might be worthy. Of course, he considered Dimitri immediately, but the thought was almost just as soon dismissed. He’d _love_ to be rid of the Crested brat. That would solve many problems for him and stop the people chattering on about how much they missed Lambert and what high hopes they had for Dimitri to be old enough to be passed the crown. But the people would riot if he sent him away. They’d never allow it. And so passed a sleepless night for the poor King, not even cooing wenches or the finest wine were able to drown his sorrows.

But in the morning, a blessing came to him.

* * *

“Tarim?”

Tarim jumped, a bit startled. Usually Dimitri slept most of the day, and given his stillness on the cot, she had assumed he yet was. “Yes, what is it?”

“I’m warm…”

She stood, smiling. He never asked for favors usually, preferring to do everything he could himself, so if he did not want to stand, she was happy to help. “I’ll open the window for you,” she offered. The cool morning breezes should fix the problem.

Only they didn’t.

Dimitri didn’t eat, even when she coaxed. He’d shown so much progress before now, actually eating on his own when she brought food. But not today. He shook his head, his hair (now neatly, if awkwardly trimmed since Tarim was no stylist) clinging to his cheeks with sweat. “My stomach,” he rasped, clutching at his shirt. “It aches.”

She quickly fetched medicine. Indeed, his skin was not only warm, but hot to the touch. She insisted he take honeyed tea and stay in bed while she worked, but the situation worsened in the most horrifying and awkward way. She looked up around noon when he was tossing and turning in his sleep. He was whimpering, perhaps another nightmare, poor thing. But an hour later, she began to notice strange things. There was a _scent_ in the air, thick and cloying, sticking to her tongue. She checked all of the candles; perhaps too much sweet scented oil had been used, so she put them out. She could work by the light of the afternoon sun.

It was only when he woke, sobbing with pain that she finally realized what was happening. Dimitri _never_ cried when in pain. He bore it either stoically, with a clenched jaw, or he just stared forward grimly, as if in acceptance of his fate. But as he was clutching his stomach and curling into his sheets, clawing at the neck of his shirt, she realized, with small amount of horror, that the sheets beneath him were _wet._ Not merely soaked in sweat, no… they were drenched, as were the breeches he wore, at the seat and between the thighs. He clenched his legs together, hoping to quell the pain as he looked up at her in terror as if to beg _what’s happening to me?_

No. _No,_ this couldn’t be. This was the worst thing that could possibly happen. From a long line of alpha Kings, the prince’s body had flatly turned against him at the worst time, lonely, imprisoned, and sick in the head.

There was no way Tarim could change this or hide him. It was the twisting of the hands of cruel fate, and she was not some master mage or a _Goddess_ who could dial back the hands of time or change what had been written in stone, perhaps long before Dimitri was born. It was too late now.

* * *

“And so, in this regrettable circumstance,” Rufus of Itha smiled to his newly cowed subjects. “It seems the crown prince will not be able to perform the responsibilities requisite to leading the Kingdom of Faerghus.” And that was it. There was nothing they could do, no other heir to take the helm. They would be steered right into the rocks and they would gladly be steered there because they would prefer a more aggressive King to one who would be delicate with his choices. Rufus was not their first choice of nobleman that could claim the throne, but Dimitri had become their last.

They dispersed with dark hearts, recognizing that until Rufus had an heir of his own, they would be stuck with him. He was not their favorite King, but he was the only one they had. Presenting as a weak and fragile omega was just as bad as being born a woman. It didn’t matter that his blood was stamped with the historic Crest of their long-adored hero. He was as good as _refuse_ now.

Whatever instrument was nearest to him now resembled a spider’s leg. Dimitri stared at it numbly, wondering what might be done with him now. Tarim had not been able to protect him when Cornelia swept into their little garden tower. They’d spent weeks working on his health, all for naught. Who would complain now if an omega bitch in heat was dragged off? There was no title for him now. Just this--a clean white sheet, a cold surgical table, and the straps of leather which normally could not contain someone of his strength. Those and the spider-leg device that lay on the metal tray awaiting Cornelia’s guiding hand.

“Dimitri,” the mage cooed somewhere over his head. He couldn’t properly see her. She had covered one of his eyes in a swath of linens for some reason. “Poor thing. This must be so humiliating for you.” She smoothed his hair flat by his cheek. He was no longer a warm body to touch. He was as cold as the buckles which bound him. He could try to break free, he could try to summon his Crest, but what would be the point? “I’m sorry I had to make you wait. These experiments are very dangerous when one is in heat, I’m sure you understand.”

He nodded obediently. She was mocking, she was cruel, but he was, as always, loyal to authority. And there was no higher authority in Faerghus than the mage Cornelia, not even his uncle the King. Even he knew that.

“Well. You don’t need to worry,” she promised, her blurry shadow sweeping from his line of sight again, halved by the linens and stretched by his sudden lack of depth perception. Idly, he wondered if she would let him take off the strange bandage for when he practiced with the lance. It only occurred to him afterwards that perhaps he wouldn’t be allowed to do that anymore. Or ever again. “Under my knife, you humans are all the same,” she kept on, knowing he didn’t care, knowing he wasn’t curious, wasn’t interested in understanding what she meant by ‘humans.’ “Alpha or omega, male or female, Crested or Crestless… although,” she giggled and he winced at the sound, although he didn’t know why. “Admittedly, you are a _bit_ more valuable with a Crest.”

 _Valuable._ It had been four years since he’d considered himself worthy of value. Perhaps now he might be worthy of a ransom worth a sack of sprouted potatoes. He wasn’t anything. Just a thin, reedy teenager with nothing to live for. _Omega._ His father would have scorned him. Perhaps, he thought, it was good that he had died before he could see what a pathetic disgrace his son had become.

Would he be sold, he wondered? He knew that some omegas were. In Faerghus, even an omega noble might still be pawned off to be someone else’s problem. They were not good for carrying a family title, for working the land, for carrying off to battle… They were only good to spread their legs and bear children for their master, their alpha. So, as a man, Dimitri was worth even less than that. He couldn’t bear children for anyone, and no one worthy of respect would take him into their bed.

He found himself wondering again if he would still deign to be used anyway. Wasn’t being used better than languishing in isolation? Wasting away until his flesh rotted and his bones became dust all alone? Why hadn’t his friends come for him? Did they think he was nothing but a useless heat-bitch too?

He closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind wander to them all. Felix, Sylvain, Ingrid, Tarim… they had all forgotten him, or _would_ given time.

“Ah ah ah,” Cornelia tutted as she leaned over his face once again, blocking him from the light. _Yes,_ he mused. _Let the darkness take me._ “I need at least this eye open,” she smiled, pressing her curved nails lightly over Dimitri’s left eye, the one she left unbandaged. “How else will I take it out?”

He didn’t flinch, he didn’t startle, he didn’t even have the mental fortitude to appear alarmed by her words. He just watched, still numb, as the spider-leg came down, down, down…

And claimed him.

* * *

“What the hell do you _mean,_ we can’t see him?” Felix challenged the King. He could feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, attempting to hold him back, but it was a fruitless effort on Rodrigue’s part. Felix was younger and stronger than he was, and much less equipped to hold back his temper. “You can’t fucking _do_ this, you can’t fucking keep him _prisoner_ here!”

Rufus was bored of this interaction. He didn’t seem to understand the significance of the son of his most prominent Duke so violently wanting his head. “Perhaps you do not understand what it _means_ to be King,” he quipped back. He had already dealt with the son of Gautier and the daughter of Galatea this morning, and he could only look forward to the time in which he would be completely rid of this problem. _A few more days,_ he reminded himself. _Just a few more days._ “Dimitri is my ward,” he pointed out, which was true enough, but had nothing to do with him being King. “I can do whatever I like with him.”

Before Felix could snap back, Rodrigue, who had been silent all this time, spoke up. His hand was still clamped on Felix’s shoulder, holding him back from drawing his sword in this so-called King’s presence, which would do no one any good, least of all the one they sought to help. “I think,” he said levelly, quiet but not calm in the least. “That it is _you_ who does not understand what it means to be King, Rufus.” His smile was pointedly aggressive and it took Rufus by surprise that the adult in this situation was also challenging him. Just how stupid were these people?

But still, Rodrigue scared Rufus more than his bratty son, major Crest or not. “Look,” he attempted to remedy what he planned to call ‘a simple miscommunication.’ “I don’t know what it is you want from me. He can’t bear a title as an omega, it’s in our laws. You know this, Duke Fraldarius. Especially not the title of _King.”_

Felix was about to rip himself from his father and _tackle_ the man off the throne. But his father, once more, intervened. “Indeed it is,” he said firmly. “I am surprised your council has not advised you to change such laws, my King.” It was subtle, so subtle, but the way he said _my King_ was almost discerning, as if he were speaking to someone else, someone other than Rufus. “They are outdated and make a mockery of justice.”

Rufus colored, so much quicker to fury than his brother had been and so much less worthy than him too. “Our _traditions_ are not a mockery of justice, _Rodrigue_ ,” he shot back, trying to summon as much vitriol and venom in saying his name as Rodrigue had in saying ‘my King.’ He failed.

“Nevertheless,” Rodrigue finally let go of Felix’s shoulder, now that his son could see his father was going to do something about this. There was always the chance for violence later. He withdrew a carefully folded parchment from the folds of his furred cloak, closed by the seal of royal blue and stamped by the Crest of Fraldarius. “Whatever you intend, I would like to make a wager for His Highness instead.”

Rodrigue’s nostrils flared in outrage. Rodrigue still had the _nerve_ to refer to Dimitri as ‘His Highness’ after being officially and legally stripped of all of his titles, including the Lord Duke he had been demoted to when Rufus first took his brother’s crown. “What wager would the lordly Duke Fraldarius possibly grant for a lowly heat-bitch?”

There was the violent slide of steel upon leather, and Rufus would later claim that Rodrigue purposefully allowed his son to bound forward, pressing his blade to the King’s vulnerable throat. Felix was only seventeen, but he was quicker than the indolent Kingsguard who didn’t give an honest damn if Rufus was killed or not. At this point, no one but Rufus cared.

He gasped, his clenched fists trembling against the stone arms of a stolen throne as Felix hissed directly into his face. _“You have no right to sit there and call the rightful King a heat-bitch,”_ he warned him, pressing the blade deeply enough to draw the thinnest line of blood. Rufus’s adam’s apple bobbed against the sword as he attempted to swallow his fear. _“Because as far as I’m concerned, I could slit your throat right now and the Kingdom would be better for it, wouldn’t it, Rufus?”_

The Kingsguard had advanced cautiously now since Felix already had the upper hand, their swords and spears surrounding him. They were loyal to Rufus in that he was now head of the Blaiddyd House and the Blaiddyd House paid their salaries, but if they had been truly devoted to him, Felix never would have gotten this far, and Rufus knew that. He did not have the peoples’ love and adoration, and he had to be careful.

Rodrigue didn’t seem that worried. He even seemed bored. “Come now, Felix. No use wasting your blade on him. We’ve only come to make a deal, haven’t we?”

Felix straightened his back and sheathed his blade, whipping around with such a furious stare that none of the guards even bothered to arrest him as he pushed through their ranks and returned to his father’s side. Rufus considered calling for the command to seize them, but even he was smart enough to know that they wouldn’t do it. The Fraldarius household was powerful, more powerful than Blaiddyd now, and even though he was just a brat, Felix bore a major Crest while Rufus had none. He’d been taught the blade as any noble child was, but Rodrigue was a war hero, as was his deceased Glenn, and Rufus didn’t want to find out how talented Felix was.

“He’s not for sale,” he spat, rubbing the blood from his neck. “And after such a disrespectful display, I don’t know _what_ makes you think I’d sell him to you.”

“Oh come now,” Rodrigue frowned, the creases around his mouth spelling yet more danger for the false King. “What possible use could you have for a so-called _heat-bitch?”_

Felix’s hand remained on the hilt of his blade, like a warning.

Trying to regain some semblance of control, Rufus sat up straight. “As a matter of fact, he has been chosen for a special assignment,” he lied. “A foreign dignitary to Duscur, in fact.” The only thing special about that assignment was that he could get rid of Dimitri and appease Duscur with one easy move. “They have asked for one, and he is of the Blaiddyd royal line, even if he no longer bears the name, so he is perfectly suited to the role.”

“You’re sending him to Duscur?” Felix interrupted, cold and stark with his alarm. “You can’t just _banish_ him! This is his _home!”_

“Felix.” Rodrigue could count on one hand how many times using a tone with Felix had actually gotten him to shut up and heel, but he did for now, allowing Rodrigue to return his guiding hand to his shoulder. “How thoughtful of you, my King, to grant His Highness such a lofty position,” he said coldly, bowing low. Felix did not. “Then I suppose we will take our business and go.”

No one stopped them.

* * *

Dimitri was bleeding. And he was _awake._ He screamed and screamed, but Cornelia didn’t seem to mind. She hummed as she worked, as if Dimitri’s noise was just a harmony to her own voice. Twice she checked the belts across his chest and arms, but they held. The material and the enchantment she used on it had not been easy to come by, but this would be well worth it. Another little bite of the mystery to the powerful dragons who had descended upon Fódlan from another star.

If she had time, she’d only use him as a blood factory. Keep him alive and still making blood bit by bit for her to experiment with. Alas, it was more useful in the long run to prevent a war with Duscur, and they seemed appeased by their compromise of handing over one of the Blaiddyd name. If she was lucky, Dimitri being a heat-bitch might not matter to some Duscur swine and she’d bear a child with a Crest that Cornelia could come and claim at any time. And if she wasn’t that lucky, Rufus would probably bear some Crested brat eventually with all the time he’d been spending with women and not governing his people.

She set aside one bloody instrument for a cleaner one, still humming to herself as Dimitri’s blood splashed upon her dress. He writhed and thrashed and several times, Cornelia witnessed the beautiful flash of the butterfly-like Crest spreading its wings from his chest, but the belts held, to her amazement. “Amusing,” she laughed as she stared down at his helpless and mutilated face. “To think you could break through a brick wall and yet a simple enchantment and some Albinean leathers can keep you down.”

 _Kill me._ He had begged it so many times, sobbed it to her with all of his might. If this was to be his life, there was no living now. _Kill me,_ he pleaded, _please._

“Sorry,” she pursed her lips. “You’re worth far too much alive,” she sighed. And she wasn’t sorry. Why would she be? To her, Dimitri was nothing more than a squeaking lab rat, twitching in agony. Only this, this was far more visceral, far more _entertaining._ “If you hold still, it will be over much more quickly.”

Another lie. It took hours of torment, hours of severing firing nerves, one by one, woozy blood loss, weeping and begging for death before finally, she allowed him to black out from the pain. In her gloved hand she held it, a perfect blue eye that bore every bit of information she could use to learn about the Blaiddyd Crest. It wasn’t as good as having Dimitri actually living in her laboratory, but she would have to make do.

“Ah, my little prince,” she whispered, stroking his bloody, matted bangs back from his brow. “So young and already so ugly.” She chuckled to herself as she turned, preserving the eye in a thick gel-like substance where she could imagine it might watch her experiments in horror. Wouldn’t _that_ be something?

* * *

All the fighting from the Fraldarius, Gautier, and Galatea Houses had managed to do was delay the inevitable. They managed to delay with appeals, by bringing up long and meaningless business matters, trying to rouse the peoples’ anger, all for a scant five years. They had been trying to keep Dimitri home with them. But all they’d managed to do was extend his torture under Cornelia’s claws.

When Dimitri emerged a week after the final announcement of his departure to Duscur, he was not alone. The friends he had thought had abandoned them, they were all there. Tarim, Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain… they were all lined up outside by the carriage that had been prepared to take him all the way to Duscur. Originally, Rufus had not been inclined to give him a carriage, but the three young children of prominent Faerghus Households had thrown such a fit that Rufus had finally given in. It was a beautiful carriage, lined with soft velvet cushioning and filled with the few treasures that Rufus had deemed appropriate to give to the ‘swine’ of Duscur.

He called it an offering. In reality, it was a dowry. He didn’t want Dimitri back, and while the chieftain of the Duscur people had assured Rufus that Dimitri would be allowed to visit his homeland, Rufus insisted that it would not be possible. He wouldn’t have him back here for any reason.

All four of Dimitri’s only friends, and Rodrigue who had helped to raise him when they had a different King, rushed to his side. He was barely recognizable to them. It had been nine years since they’d last seen him and they weren’t even convinced he’d been kept alive until they saw him. A decade of torment had transformed him from a sweet, healthy boy into this enormous, pale shadow. It was Ingrid who brushed aside the long, unkempt mane of hair and revealed the wicked-looking scars over his eye.

“What have you done to him, you _snake!?”_ she screamed, and this time Rodrigue had to hold _her_ back. Rufus, who honestly had no idea what Cornelia had done to Dimitri in her lab since he was no longer allowed down there, shook his head.

“He injured himself many times in his grief, Lady Galatea,” he said dismissively. Dimitri did not protest this, though he should.

Standing to the side, Cornelia kept her little smirk to herself. Tarim was easily enough controlled; she was a beta and the daughter of a scullery maid and a scribe. No one would care what she had to say. But the Fraldarius, Gautier, and Galatea Households would need to be appeased as much as Duscur, and soon if they were to prevent a civil war. And Rufus certainly wasn’t going to do it, the moron. So it would fall to her, of course. And nobody bought Rufus’ claims.

“They’ll pay for this,” Felix was snarling under his breath as he clutched Dimitri’s arm, trying to show his loyalty by threatening justice through violence. It wasn’t his usual way, but he hadn’t seen his dearest friend in nine years, and he had come out of his isolation looking like _this._ “I swear by the Goddess, I’ll kill every last one of them--”

“Felix,” Sylvain interjected quietly. He by no means disagreed with this sentiment, but he could see that it was doing no favors to their dear Dimitri. He stood before them, but not with them, his single eye dazed and staring off uselessly into the distance, without that glint of hope they’d always known him to have. That spark of life that he held when he’d offered to bandage Felix’s knee before, or when he cried and clung to Sylvain when he didn’t want him to leave, or when he happily shared his plate with the ever-hungry Ingrid… all of it was gone. They were too late to bring about the life in him. He was gone.

“Mitya?” Sylvain asked, soft as he reached for him. He’d grown so tall, sprouted like a weed, but he was so thin, so gaunt, so lifeless that Sylvain was afraid that if he touched him too hard, he might fall over. Or worse, just fall apart. “Can you hear me?”

“Of course, Sylvain,” Dimitri replied, but his smile was full of nothing but the desire for that eternal rest which seemed so distant. “Forgive me… it has been so long, seeing you all together here, that I find myself at a loss for words.”

Ingrid shared a look with Felix that depicted her horror. Dimitri, if he was acting, seemed determined in only one thing--to pretend that he had simply been too busy to meet with them, and not locked away and tortured for five years like they knew he must have been to look this way. Ingrid turned away; she couldn’t look at him, not like this, not so distant and empty.

Sylvain was the only one who could keep his composure, it seemed, but he was used to that. He slipped Dimitri’s hand into both of his, as if he could breathe some life into him. “Hey, buddy,” he murmured, ignoring everyone who watched this interaction. This wasn’t about him, this wasn’t about them. “You’ve gotten so tall. I think you’re a bit taller than me, actually. I’m a bit jealous.”

Dimitri smiled for him like Sylvain hoped he would, but it was just as devoid of substance as the faraway look in his remaining eye. “You have nothing to be jealous of, Sylvain. You are as handsome as ever. And an alpha, if I’m not mistaken? Congratulations.”

Of course he could not be mistaken. As nothing but an omega, Dimitri felt strangely drawn to him.

Sylvain shifted uncomfortably, knowing how much had been taken from Dimitri simply by the accident of gender. “Yeah. Felix and Ingrid too. We… tried to take you home with us,” he said quietly. _‘Home’_ being, of course, somewhere safe where the three of them could heal him and remind him he was loved every day. They’d banded together to argue for a purchase, citing old laws and traditions of purchasing ‘heat-bitches’ in the past, but Rufus had remained stubborn, and as Dimitri was his ward, it was his right not to sell him.

In Faerghus, the word for a male omega was simply ‘comfort.’ It was the gravest insult. Given that male omegas could not even bear children except to find a woman that would accept them, what else could they be called except the mild implication that they existed for the pleasure of others? Rufus had cited the insult in his response to Duscur, claiming that he was sending them ‘comfort.’ He expected they would just know what that meant. A rare thing, a male omega was good for little more than indentured servitude, and even then they could not be expected to do anything too laborious. They became housemaids, servants, perhaps even cooks. But nothing more. They were looked upon with disgust by even those who were hardly above them in status, and taken advantage of by anyone who wanted to, since no one cared what befell them.

They bore no personhood, even in a court of law. They had no rights, no protections, and no future. Most of them committed suicide at early ages. Others escaped to live solitary lives. The rest lived on in misery until eventually a drunken master of their house beat them to death for no other reason than that they could. No one would bat an eye.

Dimitri’s friends had known what would become of him. They had tried to whisk him away for safety. Rufus had sent letter after letter to Duscur over five years promising that they would receive Dimitri when the ‘civil unrest’ had died down. Duscur had been patient. Now, they would finally receive their ‘comfort.’ Jerked from the home he knew and the friends and family that he loved, Dimitri expected this transport to the northernmost country would be the last time he saw the sunlight.

He barely heard them fretting over him. Even Sylvain’s more soft and patient intonations filled only the background noise of Dimitri’s limited awareness. He blinked sadly at them. In his mind, he’d already said his goodbyes.

“Fe?” Sylvain finally asked. “Are you going to say goodbye?”

Ingrid and Sylvain had already said it. Rodrigue and Tarim had already said it, making promises to see him again that even they knew were hopeful lies.

Felix had been staring savagely at both Rufus and Cornelia for the past few minutes. They were to blame. They had taken away his friend, when Felix had already lost so much. And they had taken away everything that Dimitri had when he had nothing left to give. He looked back at Sylvain. “I do _not_ accept this,” he snarled.

Sylvain squeezed his shoulder. “I know.”

It wasn’t a goodbye per se, and Dimitri didn’t know how he was going to give one anyway, so he just stared grimly down at Felix, wishing he could remember how to feel joy to be amused that Felix had not grown much. Definitely not as tall as Sylvain or himself.

Felix looked away, folded his arms. If someone had told Dimitri he had threatened the King’s life five years ago for calling him a heat-bitch, Dimitri would truly have been surprised. He didn’t remember their kinship, didn’t know how to reconnect something that felt so broken and distant.

“Well… goodbye then,” Dimitri said to him, and brushed past to climb into the carriage. The one memory of his father he’d been allowed to keep, the sterling blue cloak with the fur of a black wolf and a white intertwined, brushed over Felix’s boots as he went. Felix wanted to stop him, to say something more. But he also didn’t know how. None of them did.

Tarim had petitioned to go with him, and while no one cared if she went, Dimitri had begged her to stay here. _Faerghus needs you,_ he had said, and she couldn’t fault him for saying so. He was right. With Rufus now unchallenged, Faerghus _did_ need her. Perhaps she just wished he needed her too. She stood there with the rest, with Felix and Ingrid, while Sylvain stepped forward to help Dimitri into the carriage.

Perhaps to anyone else, it might have seemed like the typical assistance of an alpha to their serving omega, but it was more than that to Sylvain. After all, whatever their genders, he had always loved Dimitri and always would. “We’re with you,” he whispered to Dimitri, but it was meaningful, not just some spiritual bullshit. He meant it in every sense of the word. Sylvain had already defied his father to come see him off, he’d defy him a little more to follow the tiny caravan to Duscur with Felix and Ingrid, see him safely there. Perhaps they’d need to return, but they weren’t about to let him go alone.

Dimitri missed the meaning entirely. “Thank you,” he said softly, taking Sylvain’s hand to step into the carriage. Somehow, his body had survived the torment of a decade to remain muscular, yet he felt as weak as he ever had. Sylvain did not miss _that_ meaning.

The door closed and Dimitri had a very long debate within himself of whether or not to open the curtain or to leave it closed. He wanted to see his homeland one last time… but he was too ashamed to show his face. The face of a heat-bitch, of ‘comfort,’ of failure. He left it closed. He felt the carriage move and wondered what his cage in Duscur would be like. Perhaps they, too, would torture him. He truly knew nothing about the people; only how Rufus had spoken of them, calling them wild boars and leaving many hints that they were the types of people who danced on embers howling and who rolled around in mud before a hunt. It didn’t matter if it was true or not. Dimitri knew his fate would be much the same.

His departure from Fhirdiad brooked no fanfare, nor mourning from the people aside from his friends. They didn’t care what became of him now. It was cold and wet, as typical a day as any on the Tailtean Plains. Dimitri saw none of it, his window still closed, but he _felt_ it, felt the moisture and cold seep into his bones. He drew the cloak tighter around himself in protection, unaware of much of anything but that he was heading north.

 _Father,_ he whispered to himself. _Would you still love me like this?_

At least he was able to do one final thing for Faerghus, preventing a bloody conflict between the two enormous countries. Yet he wasn’t able to find anything but bitterness at the thought of the many lives he had potentially saved. They were abstract to him now. He had not seen them in so long. And they did not love him.

Perhaps they never had.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE DON'T FORGET THAT THE FLUFF IS COMING SOON. This is the worst of what happens to Dimitri, it's all uphill from here, I swear! <333


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faerghus had spurned, ruined, and exiled him; Duscur welcomed him in with song and dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No trigger warnings for this chapter, except a bit of despair on Dimitri's part and some racist/sexist ideology bullshit.

Behind the carriage, three horses kept their heads bowed against the downpour, their heavy hooves churning the muddy road beneath them. Strictly, they were given orders not to leave the country, especially not to approach Duscur, in case the ‘barbarian swine’ saw the opportunity to snatch three high-profile heirs from Faerghus, significantly weakening their infrastructure. They had no doubts that the carriage driver would clue the King in on their whereabouts, so they would have to split from the carriage at some point, but for now, Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain followed. Rodrigue and Tarim had dutifully stayed behind.

“What’s the plan?” Ingrid piped up over the way the rain struck the wheels of the carriage.

“What plan?” Felix snapped back, still furious. He’d been furious for nine years, so she was used to not taking any offense from his tone. “Even if we could take him back to one of  _ our  _ Houses, Duscur would start a damned war!”

Ingrid fell silent. She already knew that was true.

“We could send someone else,” Sylvain suggested quietly. “Find someone who wouldn’t mind a vacation. They said they’d treat him well.”

Felix wanted to argue that no one could treat him as well as his friends would, but the reality of the matter was that it seemed  _ anyone  _ would treat Dimitri better than Cornelia and Rufus clearly had. He may not have known exactly what had gone on, but he knew Dimitri hadn’t removed his own damned eye.

“I mean,” Sylvain continued. “How would they know what Dimitri looks like?”

“They saw King Lambert, idiot,” Ingrid put in helpfully.

“Oh right. Well, we find some blonde guy then!”

“He’d have to be ‘comfort’ too,” Ingrid mused, as if she was actually considering this absolutely ludicrous plan.

Felix yanked the reins of his horse so that it snorted and turned sharply, cutting into the path of both Ingrid and Sylvain’s mounts, forcing them to stop. “ _ Don’t,”  _ Felix snarled at both of them, even though Sylvain had not been the one to say it. “Don’t call him ‘comfort.’ Don’t.”

Ingrid understood his anger, but she shrunk from it, something she normally wouldn’t do. But since it concerned Dimitri, she knew there was no subject more sensitive for Felix. “I was only trying to--”

“From now on,” Felix interrupted, shaking his head. “I don’t want to  _ hear  _ political bullshit from you two,” he hissed, his eyes cutting even from beneath his hood dripping into his cloak. “There has  _ never  _ been a reason to differentiate between alpha and omega people, and if I hear anything about anyone else about it, I’ll cut their hands off and feed them to them!”

He raced off, his horse protesting the treatment loudly but galloping off to rejoin the cart. Ingrid and Sylvain trotted much more slowly after him. He was right and they knew it plainly. Being Crested heirs, both of them had been steeped in gender politics since they were children, and Ingrid already had the disadvantage of being a woman. But being that she was an alpha with a Crest, she already had more status than uncrested men of her rank, or even Crested beta men. She fought harder than Sylvain, who had all the requirements of being the top of the pyramid, and Felix had loathed the system from the moment he could even understand it.

But they were lucky. They were  _ free. _

* * *

Dimitri dozed, and when he dozed, he dreamed of impossible things. He dreamed of his father and his stepmother returned to him, of Glenn, his trusted guardian, and the laughter they had once shared. He dreamed of a world that Felix wanted, where such qualifiers as gender or specification didn’t matter, and he could live amongst his people in love and safety.

He could only imagine that when the carriage door opened, he must still be dreaming.

The rain had gone. Warmth and sun spilled like honey into the tiny space, and he flinched from it, so used to darkness and cold. Blinking, he stepped down and into a crowd of people that he didn’t recognize, people who were greeting him with cheers and music and  _ colors  _ that were so loud that he desired to shrink back into the carriage where it was safe.

Faerghus had spurned, ruined, and exiled him; Duscur welcomed him in with song and dance. Everything was vibrant and strange, nothing at all like the steel grey palette of Dimitri’s hometown.

Indeed, he froze, considering the wealth of noise and light, and almost started to retreat back into the carriage. No. Surely he couldn’t handle this. But before he could, he was greeted too enthusiastically by a young woman and an entire entourage, half of whom seemed to be warriors, given their weapons. He had always been taught that the Duscur people were simple and primitive, yet the weapons, while they seemed outdated at first glance, were merely prioritized to be light and flexible, unlike the heavy arsenal and armor of the Holy Kingdom’s Knights. The way the sun glinted off the metal of their spears and swords suggested a purity of metal that not even the greatest smelter in all of Faerghus could hope to achieve.

“You must be Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.”

He looked down. An almost laughably small woman in comparison to himself stood there, fierce in her smile and her stare. Beads of painted bone, shards of gleaming rocks and shells entwined with her hair as naturally as if she grew them there, and her eyes were painted with the color of the forests beyond. Something about her felt not unlike Felix always had to him. Small and dangerous.

“I am,” he agreed, wishing he wasn’t. How did she speak his native tongue so well? He detected no trace of an accent. “I… forgive me, who are you?”

“I am Chieftain Aine,” she said simply, and she touched one hand to her opposite shoulder. Behind her, her entourage did the same, murmuring something under their breaths that he did not understand.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” he said, and in its own way, it  _ was  _ a pleasure. He had not met anyone new in so long, it was as though people had begun to exist only as a concept for him. He fidgeted, not used to the stares of so many hundreds of eyes. In the sun, their skin glowed bronze, not like the sickly, pallid white Dimitri had become. They were so different from how he expected people to look; they were too relaxed, too… happy. The largest gathering he had seen in nine years had been a procession of black in mourning to his father.

_ “Hold,” _ Chief Aine hissed, holding up her fist and slamming the butt of her pike into the dirt. The noise was so oddly striking, it made him flinch. He must have already offended her, so flinching was only natural for him now; after all, he was nothing more than  _ comfort.  _ “What in the gods’ names…”

She seized his cloak, her eyes glowing with malice as she ripped it off his body. He did not protest, although he lamented its loss; Duscur was brighter but it was still cold, and he didn’t have a shred of protective fat on his body. Not to mention it belonged to his father. But if she really was the chieftain, then he belonged to her, and everything he had belonged to her too.

Aine’s eyes grew large and dark as the warrior entourage gasped behind her. Dimitri could only assume they were displeased with him somehow and lowered his head quickly, ashamed, wishing he could fold up and disappear. Viper-quick, Aine seized his chin and tugged him down so that he was forced to meet her gaze.  _ “What, by all the gods, has happened to you, boy!?”  _ she demanded. The woman behind her, a woman as tall as a tower, took Dimitri’s cloak from the chieftain, shaking her head sadly.

Dimitri could feel Aine’s nails digging into his face. “I-I’m afraid I don’t… what do you mean?” he asked carefully, touching the patch of linens over his face. “Do you mean my eye?”

“I am curious as to that as well,” Aine snapped. “But why are you so  _ sick?” _ She gestured at the whole of him. As he suspected, she was angry because he wasn’t even an attractive aspect for comfort. “Do you not  _ eat?” _

“I…” Of course he ate. He ate whatever he could stomach in Cornelia’s laboratory, and only whatever she deigned to allow him on any given day.

“He is not well,” Aine announced and to Dimitri’s shock, they all seemed to understand. “Reyit, see to him! Geffa, fetch water immediately, and something to eat that is thin for the ill.” As she handed out commands left and right, Dimitri had to wonder what her husband must be like. She smelled faintly like he did--she must be an omega too, and yet she acted like the naturally superior alphas might. “You,” she gestured to him, finally letting go of his chin. “Sit here.”

She pointed to the side of his carriage where, oddly, he found a strange sort of chair awaiting him. It was lovingly carved by some soft wood, adorned with small pink flowers, and cushioned only by a simple pillow, but as he sat where he was bidden, he found it to be surprisingly twice as comfortable as the velvet seat of the carriage. The taller woman who held his cloak approached then, draping it tenderly over his shoulders. He tensed at her touch, recognizing her scent to be of the rare alpha. By the Goddess, was he to be surrounded only by omegas and alphas? The bewildering nightmare barrage of scents would never cease, then.

“You are so thin,” she said gently, and tucked the cloak even tighter around him. “Have you some disease?”

“No,” he answered, alarmed. “No, I am… not much for an appetite, I am afraid,” he admitted. He didn’t remember tasting anything in so long.

Something about the way he’d said that must have given something away because the woman, Reyit, responded sympathetically, “You have been starved… I see.”

Dimitri couldn’t protest that. He didn’t remember if he was or not. He didn’t rightly know if what Cornelia brought him was a normal amount and… he hadn’t seen a mirror in so long. So he closed his jaw and sewed it shut for the time being. So many strange things were happening around him that he couldn’t make sense of and he didn’t want to argue. He just wanted to know where he was going to be kept and who his new master would be. He assumed Chief Aine’s husband would be keeping him. He must be too busy to meet him… or perhaps he was not really worth meeting so formally. He was no longer a prince after all. Not a Duke either. Just… Dimitri, he supposed.  _ ‘Comfort.’ ‘Heat-bitch.’ _

A young man returned from the entourage of his chief, bearing a beautiful pitcher of water. It must have been made without the use of a spinning wheel, it was too imperfect to be otherwise. But there was something just so lovely about it. He offered it to Dimitri with a little smile, but he was not given a glass and so, feeling sheepish, Dimitri drank from the pitcher. His hands shook badly, sloshing water over the clean tunic he’d been given to wear by his former captor, but that was nothing so unusual anymore.

Reyit and the young man, Geffa, however, seemed to think it was very bad indeed. They exchanged similar looks to what Ingrid and Sylvain had done.

“Where is Aine?” Reyit asked Geffa, but he didn’t respond in the Fódlan tongue, even though she asked him as such. Dimitri wiped his lips with his sleeve, having nothing better to use, wondering at the strange rules of language here. Geffa, almost exasperated, gestured to the carriage Dimitri had arrived in.

As the three of them looked, they could see the tiny woman, holding the poor carriage driver up by the collar and shaking him angrily, shouting in his face.

“Oh no…” Reyit took off, her beautiful, loping stride reminding Dimitri of a great hunting hound he saw once from Almyra. It was offered to his father as a gift from some foreign dignitary when Dimitri was very young, but mostly it just played in the gardens until it grew old. A Pharaoh Hound, he distantly remembered, drinking more water and dully watching as Aine assaulted the driver. What could she have to be angry about, he had to wonder? Unless she was demanding he be taken back to Fhirdiad immediately and replaced with a better hostage.

Geffa ignored the scene too, turning to look at him. He must have been just a teenager, yet he was strong and healthy, not like Dimitri at all. It was hard to be easy in the presence of an alpha, but Geffa did not reach for him or try to touch him in any violent way.

When Reyit returned with a red-faced Aine, the smaller woman was shaking with fury. “--and the  _ nerve  _ of that nasty King!” she was spitting, Reyit calmly patting her shoulder over the warm-looking furs she bore. Finally, Aine threw up her hands in defeat as the carriage raced back to the south, eager to get away from Duscur.

Dimitri was alone among them.

“Geffa, what are you doing?” Aine snapped. “Did I not say to bring food for him?”

Reyit calmly intervened. “Dedue is returning with it, Aine. Please, do not get worked up. You are scaring our guest, I think.”

For the second time, Aine really  _ looked  _ at him, stared at Dimitri now holding the empty pitcher. He wondered if he should stand up in respect, but she just folded her arms tightly and  _ huffed  _ at him, as if he should be expected to know what she meant by that. “Don’t get  _ worked up?  _ Reyit, look at him! He is Olandi, and they have starved him! Dimitri,” she commanded and he startled badly, jerking from the chair as he looked up at her insistence. She must have seen he was spooked, because she then lowered her voice. “Tell me what has happened. Why are you like this? That useless man would not say!”

Reyit, Aine, and Geffa all turned probing eyes to him.

“I…” What were they expecting him to say? He didn’t even know what they were referring to. “What happened when?” he asked, almost fearful. There was just so much  _ stimulation  _ after so long of not having any worthwhile communication.

“Your  _ health,  _ boy!” Aine hissed. “You are Olandi! Why have you not been cared for properly?”

His head spun. “Olandi?” he tried. “I don’t… My uncle--” He flinched at his own words. He hadn’t called Rufus his Uncle in years, where had  _ that _ sprung up in his memory? “I was the King’s ward. The court mage often used my blood for experiments, I wasn’t worth much else to them--”

_ “Refai!”  _ Reyit, this time, was the one who interrupted, but her anger was colder and more dangerous, her dark eyes shadowed with fury. “Your King used your blood? For what purpose?”

“I don’t know,” Dimitri confessed, and truthfully, he had never thought to ask. He was tired, so tired.

_ “Tch.”  _ Reyit tossed her sheet of black hair over her own shoulder. “Aine, these Faerghus people are brutes. Look at the state of him, poor cub!”

Truthfully, Dimitri had never been called a ‘cub’ before. He didn’t know how to feel about it. After being called a heat-bitch, nothing else sounded truly insulting. He could only describe feeling a bit warmer, as if someone had laid another cloak over his shoulder. But it was confusing; they appeared to be close in age, after all.

Aine nodded slowly, her jaw set in a grim line. “If I had known they would send him to us in this state, I would have prepared my grandmother’s medicine,” she mumbled gruffly. “Reyit, wait for Dedue. See to it that Dimitri has every comfort. I will start on the medicine now.”

Reyit nodded sagely. “And the celebration?” she asked. “Should we cancel it?”

Aine shook her head. “No. Postpone it until the morning and prepare the feast for then. Geffa, more water. He needs it, I can see the rivers of his blood.” She marched off, leaving Dimitri to stare down at his arms in concern until he finally understood she meant the blue of his protruding veins.

As he watched the chieftain march away in clear purpose, all giving her the berth of respect, Dimitri really could see the comparison to Felix entirely. It was funny, he hadn’t spent time with him in so long, and yet the things he remembered about his friends were their mannerisms.

“Why do you smile?” Reyit asked him. He looked up, unaware he had been. “After all it is clear that you have been through, little cub, are you finally happy to be free?”

“Free?” He didn’t know the meaning of the word anymore. In truth, if his father had lived and his duties of Kingship foisted off upon Dimitri, he probably would not have known freedom then either, but he would have at least been able to see his friends and family, and not spend every night strapped to a cold table waiting for some other wicked ‘treatment’ to be done to him. Even so, he didn’t expect to be free here. In Duscur, he expected to be treated nearly the same way; with disappointment and even disgust and shame. “What do you mean?”

She did not have the chance to answer as yet another stranger came into the conversation, bearing a plate that seemed to have been molded from clay and painted a pretty sort of maroon. He spoke to Reyit, but like Geffa, he did not seem to speak the Fódlan tongue; or if he did, he was purposefully keeping Dimitri out of the loop. He was used to that anyway. Dimitri immediately felt a sudden threat; Reyit, too, smelled like an alpha, yet she had been so gentle to him that Dimitri had yet to feel threatened by her. This new intruder, however, was everything Dimitri expected in a potentially hostile party. He was immense, not merely tall but broad-shouldered and thick with muscle that could easily hold him down or rip him apart. In all honesty, he was everything the people of Faerghus had wished for in their King; a handsome, square jaw, an expression rife with gravity, and eyes deep and serious. Almost  _ grim. _

He didn’t notice himself shrinking into the chair until Reyit did, and he heard her pause and then gesture for the new man to move away to speak with her.

Geffa watched Dimitri relax and looked down at him curiously. Dimitri only shook his head; he was embarrassed to communicate that he had no control over these new terrors. He had spent five years with only Cornelia as company, and he had not learned how to fit into society as an omega--as comfort. He had to wonder if all omegas felt that way near even passing alphas. What a cruel life, to spend one’s time in fear of perfect strangers simply by the way they smelled. Not for the first time, he cursed his body for becoming so weak. He used to be so strong.

Reyit returned alone. “I apologize that his presence disturbed you,” she spoke hesitantly to Dimitri. She didn’t seem to know what was the matter, but as an alpha herself, why would she? “But Dedue will not harm you. I have sent him back for a bone broth. You need the nourishment.”

All this time, the crowd that had cheered and celebrated Dimitri’s arrival had been slowly dispersing, although more than half lingered, presumably to get a good look at their new guest. At this realization, Reyit turned and shouted something to them all, and the nearly one-hundred people turned and went about their business, looking a little disappointed.  _ I am not much to look at,  _ Dimitri wanted to agree with them.

“Come,” Reyit said gently, reaching down to him with her hand outstretched. “I will take you to a resting place.”

He did not take her hand, but he stood nonetheless, wrapping the cloak tightly about him like he was terrified to feel the sun on his skin. Still smiling, she let her hand fall and led him away. Geffa, remembering that the pitcher was empty, rushed to refill it, leaving the two of them alone.

As he neared a whole host of beautifully woven tents, it suddenly struck him; he must be  _ Reyit’s  _ comfort. He had thought panic might settle into his weary bones, but only a grim acceptance, like a still-heavy raincloud, fell over his heart instead. She would be sorry if she thought he might please her in any way. He was too thin, too weak, and too pale to be beautiful, and she… she was so lovely. Golden as a deer and tall as a tree, he could understand why she might be the one he was gifted to. What would she do to him first? At least she was kind. Perhaps she would be gentle with him, tolerate his inexperience and undoubted hesitation.

The tents, he found, were temporary. He had assumed that this was where they lived, but perhaps they were nomadic people. They weren’t staked down in any permanent fashion, and were laden with cloth and furs that could be easily packed up and carried on their backs. The Duscur people ogled him from their own tents as he passed, and he tried not to make eye contact as Reyit led him to what must be her tent.

The inside was surprisingly warm; Dimitri had been on hunting trips with his father and the knights before, and he could not imagine that they had been this comfortable. Aine was already inside, a small iron kettle in front of her, from which herbal aromas poured forth. A bit puzzled, Dimitri sat where he was bid on what appeared to be the pelt of a deer and refused to take off his cloak, no matter how hot he now was. Now that he was alone with them and the confusing scents of a crowd did not mask her, Dimitri could tell for certain that Aine was the same gender that he was. Perhaps she too belonged to Reyit? But then… did that make Reyit the chief as well? Did she not have a husband?

Questions he deemed too rude to ask.

Reyit sat beside him. “Dedue will return with broth,” she repeated, this time for Aine’s sake. Aine just hummed in approval, not removing her eyes from the kettle in front of her. Wondering what could possibly be so interesting about it, Dimitri too looked down. It was just above the tent’s small fire, but he couldn’t fathom why she was staring at it. She must have, however, been waiting for something he could not see because nearly thirty seconds later she snatched up the handle of the pot and removed it from the fire, rushing to pour water into the top.

“How much longer will that take?” Reyit frowned. “To brew it in such an amount?”

“Almost a day longer,” Aine admitted, returning the kettle over the fire as delicately as though it were glass. “But look at him, he  _ needs  _ as much as we can make.”

Reyit nodded. “Dimitri,” she said, turning to him instead. “Will this tent be satisfactory for you before we return home?”

Something about the herbs in the remedy Aine was making… it spun Dimitri’s head slowly, like a dizzy top in the air where there was no friction to speed or slow it. He stared, both exhausted and restless, at the pot while the fire licked at the bottom, turning it red as blood.

“What?” he asked, a moment too late to be considered polite. “Ah… y-yes of course.” A fur pelt was a sight better than the cot Cornelia allowed to be brought down to him. Honestly, this was more comforting too; a fire, the sounds of nature surrounding him but the cloth protecting him from rain… in a way, it was nostalgic. “Please tell me,” he said, suddenly realizing he  _ could  _ ask. “How is it that you both speak the Fódlan tongue so well?”

Reyit seemed taken aback by the question. Aine looked mildly offended. “We are not stupid,” the chief shot back, suddenly just as feral as any wildcat. “It is my responsibility as the chief to learn the tongues of our allies… and our enemies,” she pointed out. “Reyit is using a necklace, though,” she pointed. Reyit pushed back her dark hair to show him a small wooden pendant shaped in what appeared to be some sort of flower petal. “She is a gifted mage.”

Dimitri bowed his head again. “Forgive me… I did not mean to be rude.”

“Forgiven then,” Aine huffed. “You Fódlans are so strange. You think us so wild. Every time we have had someone from your country come to visit, they are always so  _ amazed  _ that we cook food and use magic.” The back end of that sentence was muttered angrily under her breath.

“What Aine means to say,” Reyit laughed, a sparkling laugh that could brighten any space, “Is that we are not so different from your people are, Prince Dimitri.”

He held up one hand that he dared to expose under the cloak. “I am a prince no longer,” he told them. “That title has already been taken from me. ‘Dimitri’ will do.”

Aine and Reyit looked at one another once again, and it was frankly infuriating to be left out of such meaningful glances. “Taken from you?” Aine snapped, her eyes narrowed slits.

“What could you have done that it would be taken from you?” Reyit added more cautiously. “I thought princes were born princes. How can a thing be taken from you when you are born?”

Dimitri did not know how he would even begin to go about trying to explain Fódlan politics to these two; not because he thought they wouldn’t understand it, he assumed they had a similar structure. He was just too exhausted, and it pained him too much to even think about. He lifted his shoulders just barely in a silent shrug. “It’s true that I was born a prince,” he admitted. “But that title can be taken away if you are deemed unfit to rule. Or unworthy.”  _ And I am both. _

“Unworthy?” Reyit prompted him to go on, waving her hand impatiently at Aine, who had snorted for some reason that Dimitri couldn’t guess at. “Why are you unworthy?”

Dimitri wondered how an alpha could honestly ask him that. He gestured to himself slowly. “I am an omega.”

“And so…?”

He stared at her. “And so… nothing. I presented as an omega, my… my designation? My secondary gender, I mean… it is considered unworthy. An omega cannot rule because we are weak.”

It did not even occur to him that he was just repeating what he had been told time and time again by his family, friends, mentors, tutors, and betters. Indeed, by  _ all  _ of the people of Faerghus. But something seemed to strike a chord when Aine hissed at him.  _ “I  _ am omega!”

“Yes?” he offered, looking as pained as he felt.

“You are saying I am too weak to rule!” Aine stood up and while she was not tall, she gripped the very air around her in ice, just the way Felix did when he was angry.

“What? No, I…”  _ Well, yes,  _ he wanted to tell her, but she was taking it as insult rather than as fact, and he didn’t know what to do with that. “Wait…” His single eye grew wide to take her fully in, an easy feet given she was barely five feet tall. “You are the  _ only  _ chief of Duscur?” he balked, truly astounded. Not only a woman, but an  _ omega  _ woman, who was only marginally more useful than he was?

Reyit put her hand on Aine’s shoulder, preventing her from tackling Dimitri. “She is not the only chief,” Reyit told him carefully. “The land of Duscur is divided into villages like ours. But she is the granddaughter of the Grand Chieftain Mordane… the woman who met with your father.”

Dimitri didn’t believe it. Of course, he hadn’t known anything about Grand Chieftain Mordane except for their name, but he would never in a century have guessed that it was a woman. How was such a thing possible? How was it possible that just miles north of his own country, the Duscur people led such a backwards life? Women were gentle and nurturing, wives and mothers, responsible and kind. His stepmother had been, from what he remembered of her. But looking at Aine now, who kept reminding him of Felix, he realized that other than his mother, he didn’t honestly know any woman that he had felt would be incapable of leading. Ingrid certainly was just and intelligent, and Tarim was tenacious and cunning. When he was very small, he had met a stepsister who was set to become the Emperor of all of Adrestia to the south, and she had never been timid as Faerghus molded all women to be in their words.

Even Cornelia was not a passive and nurturing sort. She was powerful and fearless. And terrifying.

How was it possible that such words could escape his mouth over and over again without him actually hearing or understanding them? He sat there with his mouth open, staring somewhere past Aine’s shoulder, not truly sure what he was supposed to think. There was no one there to school him, teach him. No one was going to tell him how.

“When I met the King,” Aine suddenly said, jerking him from his reverie. “He was not at all like you.” She folded her hands deep into fists. “He was respectful.”

Dimitri felt as though he’d been struck.  _ Not like you.  _ Growing up, he’d been told he needed to become just like Lambert, just like his father. He knew he didn’t live up to those expectations, not even close. But to hear a complete stranger say it when she had only known him for half an hour was like some decisive end. He would never be like his father. He would never fulfill what he was born to do. He would forever be nothing more than a useless prisoner, barely fit to even be a pawn to his homeland. A peace offering, like a sack of gold, or a few healthy horses.

She left, throwing the tent open before her. Reyit, however, sat back down with a sigh. She watched the kettle, knowing the precious medicine would likely have to be remade if Aine didn’t come back for it. And, well… there was no making Aine come back for it before she saw fit to.

“Dimitri,” she said quietly, and she was rubbing the wooden pendant between her fingertips as she stared into the fire. “Your people… We are all taught that every person must be treated with all the dignity of earth and sky, for that is how we are made.” She looked up at him. “But your people seem cruel.”

Dimitri stared at her. He wanted to defend Faerghus. For the first time in nearly a decade, he felt his heart rise in fury to summon up words which might disperse her doubts, to tell her of the people he knew who were kind and generous. But it occurred to him before he got the words out that she might be right after all. Tarim, Felix, Rodrigue, Sylvain, and Ingrid… his  _ father…  _ These were good people born to the nation of Faerghus. But even though they were all significant and recognized by the rest, they were only people. They were each only a single person. They lived, fought, and worked under the same principles that Dimitri had thoughtlessly spewed while he was here.

And when Reyit left, there was nothing left to moor him to the ground. Not even the love of his country.

* * *

“Aine,  _ wait,”  _ Reyit begged, and Aine did only because she wanted someone to be some witness to her anger instead of just stomping off into the forest all alone. “His words mean nothing, Aine. You are beloved and respected here.”

_ “Take that off,”  _ Aine spat, gesturing hatefully at the pendant. “At least speak  _ our  _ tongue when you’re talking to me!”

Reyit obeyed with a sigh. “Aine… what is really wrong?” She laid her hand over her lover’s shoulder. “Talk to me.” And there was that voice, that sweet wonderful sound which Aine had grown so accustomed to in her youth, washing over her like a wave of peace. Aine wanted to remain angry a little longer, so she pulled away from her.

“Faerghus disgusts me,” Aine growled, nothing that Reyit didn’t already know. “If I had known back then what I know now, I would never have let the King come here!”

“You were fifteen,” Reyit pointed out. “And that decision was not yours to make.”

“But I was wrong, wasn’t I?” Aine bit back, baring her teeth like some angry fox. “Dimitri and the King are  _ exactly  _ alike, aren’t they? I just didn’t see it. He spoke to grandmother so openly, so kindly… but they were  _ lies!  _ He ruled a Kingdom of savages! What manner of place could oppress so many so willingly and not change in ten years?”

Reyit just nodded along with her rant. She had once been more like Aine, but perhaps being so near to Aine gave her the temperance to become more patient and understanding. She didn’t know. Whatever the case, she was going to dole out the simple answers that Aine would probably either outwardly reject or entertain for a bit. “Then, do you want to war with them?”

“On what grounds!?” Aine snapped, predictably. “They have sent the man they promised to send.”

“On the grounds of justice for all,” Reyit offered quietly.

She could practically watch Aine deflate and become even smaller than she was before. “I… I couldn’t,” she said sadly. “So many would die. And it is not a war Duscur would want. They hate Faerghus.”

“So do you, and yet  _ you  _ desire to free Faerghus.”

“They’d never be happy to be freed by invaders from Duscur.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“Then,” Aine huffed, folding her arms. “Why are you suggesting this to me?” she grumbled. Reyit wanted to tap her little nose and laugh. Her Aine could be so stubborn and so full of fire, but at the same time, it was so easy for someone like Reyit to patiently remove the fuel and watch her fizzle out.

Reyit draped her arms over Aine. “I am only trying to help,” she purred, reaching down to squeeze Aine’s hip, satisfied to feel her skin heat like embers rolled over in the pit. “Perhaps you need some relief, my chieftain?”

Aine grumbled and fussed about it, but she would never turn Reyit down.

* * *

Dimitri passed the night in a cage, just as he had known he was going to Duscur to do. To live out the rest of his days in abject misery and isolation while life passed him by, warm and colorful and happy to exclude him. He did not sleep, as he didn’t most nights, lying awake and watching the tent flaps as though someone might come through them to give him all the answers he required. To tell him what to think, and how. The ‘why’ was too difficult for him now. He hadn’t asked ‘why’ in ten years, why start now? He had not been comfortable in his knowledge before, and yet why did he retreat there? It was like backing away from one cliff’s edge to an empty cave. There might be life in the valley, but he didn’t have to take a leap to return to the cave.

He just stared. He didn’t wish to go home; there was nothing there for him. Not even the people wanted him there. His friends hadn’t bothered even to write. Not that he knew for sure, very much doubting Cornelia would have let any letter through to him. But honestly, he didn’t believe they would have tried anyway. They hadn’t seemed all that  _ real  _ when he last met them this morning. Perhaps they weren’t. Perhaps none of this was real at all.

He watched the dark tapestries of night glow with newborn hues when the dawn approached outside his door, but he didn’t know what to make of them. He hadn’t seen a dawn in five years, and he didn’t have any desire to see one now. It would only be the sun shining down on his ugly skin to remind him of what a true shame he was to everyone who had hoped for better from him.

He was beyond startled when the tent flap opened--almost as if he had forgotten it could do that--and Aine appeared. She frowned when she saw him still sitting in the same place as the night before, still wrapped in the same position. She didn’t bother asking him if he had slept at all. The answer was clear.

“Do you want to eat?” she asked more camly than before; despite all of Reyit’s soothing energy played upon Aine’s fraying nerves all night, the shorter woman could never be called  _ kind,  _ at least, not in the way she spoke.

“No, thank you,” he said, bowing his head good morning.

She looked ticked. “You want water?”

“No thank you.”

Her ‘ticked’ became short of all patience. “You want to sit here and stink up my tent, or do you at least want to bathe?”

Dimitri blanched.  _ “Your _ tent?” he asked suddenly. She hadn’t returned to sleep here the night before like he had assumed she would. He thought maybe this was  _ his  _ tent after all. “I thought--”

“Is that all that you’ve been doing?” she accused him. “Sitting and thinking? Just get out here, Dimitri, there’s a celebration for you and I won’t take away an excuse for my people to celebrate. They’ve been stirring the Calwei all night.”

Dimitri blinked up at her, as bewildered as an owl in the sunlight. “Calwei?”

She grabbed his cloak and dragged him out to the breakfasting crowd. Most of the Duscur were up at this point, running around and doing chores, so it seemed. Dimitri, dragged along by the much shorter Aine, watched children making a game of collecting the tent stakes as fast as they could--inevitably catching someone sleeping inside with a tent falling on them. The elder ones were positioned before three or four large fires, doling out what appeared to be some sort of sweet-smelling gruel and a flat bread to the others. Despite his rather limited senses, Dimitri was at least able to take in these scents, which meant they must have been very strong.

Reyit awaited him by a small stream after a break in the trees, holding what appeared to be two large swatches of soft bark draped with a cloth. She smiled gently as Aine tugged Dimitri along, ever the moon to Aine’s demanding and burning sun. “Good morning, Dimitri,” Reyit bowed her head.

“Er… good morning,” he offered back, utterly confused but not bothering to try and make sense of anything. He looked at the stream, imagining how cold it must be. But it might be nice to bathe. Cornelia only ever did it for him and he had always loathed the feeling.

“Hurry up,” Aine grumbled, pushing him so he stumbled forward a bit while she tore away his cloak. “We’ll get you new clothes and furs. You wash up. Reyit will see to it that you eat.” It was  _ not  _ a request. “Reyit, where is Dedue? He didn’t come back with the broth last night.”

Reyit bowed her head respectfully as she readied that sweet-gruel which must be  _ calwei _ . “He was called away on divine responsibility,” she said.

Aine looked surprised. “Ah… then you mean to say…?”

“Yes.” Reyit smiled at Dimitri as he undressed, his modesty having been stripped away by five years of being treated as nothing more than Cornelia’s favorite test subject. The two women didn’t seem to mind anyway. “It seems Za’ar has called on him to be Dimitri’s protector and Favored One.”

Dimitri looked up, half-naked and shivering a bit as he stepped into the stream. He didn’t even notice the way that they looked upon his web of many scars with utter disgust for the one who held the scalpel that caused them. “My protector?” he echoed. “Favored One?”

This, Aine actually did seem to have the patience to explain to him. She bowed her head. “I do not expect you would know. Your Goddess is absolute in your country, and we respect this. But you are Olandi; this means you are of the Goddess Oland.”  _ Olandi.  _ He’d heard her say that before, but had absolutely no idea what the pretty word meant. Whatever it was, it didn’t translate to anything he recognized. “She is the most fearsome warrior, her blade is a symbol of justice through battle!” she exclaimed, as passionately as Ingrid spoke of the glorious honor of knighthood. “And most importantly, she is the force of good, the  _ power  _ behind change, the strength against injustice. She is our Goddess of war.”

Reyit nodded, gesturing for Dimitri to remove his breeches as well. Dutifully, he did so. “Oland’s lover is the Goddess Za’ar, her eternal partner, and defender of the Olandi.” Dedue, whoever that was, had been called by this Za’ar, it seemed. Dimitri was dizzy with keeping up with this new cultural lesson. He could only assume that the pendant Reyit used must be faulty--after all, whoever heard of two  _ Goddesses  _ being lovers? He assumed Oland must be the God, being associated with blades and battle, but he wasn’t about to interrupt such a passionate depiction. “Za’ar is stalwart and true. Through the union of Za’ar and Oland, true harmony is achieved.”

Dimitri was still confused. “And what makes me Olandi?” he asked, trembling with cold as he crouched in the stream naked to bathe himself. “I am from Faerghus.”

“What does that matter?” Aine scoffed, thrusting a little bowl of some sweet-smelling soap towards him. “You are Olandi, right? It is your gender, like mine.”

Oh… did Olandi mean omega? Something about that did not line up. “Oland is your warrior God?” he asked, utterly sure he had misheard or misunderstood. Then again, everything here was backwards.

“Yes, yes, don’t you listen?”

Dimitri quickly quieted. He did not want to incur her wrath again by asking why the weak omega would be represented by a warrior like Oland. Then again, Aine had been  _ furious  _ when he insinuated that she should not rule. After all, Duscur had their women fight as well. It all just spun around in his head.

“I see.”

“No you don’t,” Aine accused, crossing her arms. “But whatever. You, Olandi, will be bound to Dedue, your Za’ara, your protector and Favored One, when the sun reaches its zenith. So you must be dressed and fed by then, hurry  _ up!”  _

He didn’t argue with her and she was perfectly content with that. The barkcloth that Reyit held out to towel him dry was surprisingly soft despite its rigid appearance, and he couldn’t recall the last thing something had felt soothing against his skin. As he rubbed down, nearly force fed the best food he was able to semi-taste in years, he tried to make sense of all of this. So this Dedue… he must be his new master. And if Olandi like him were omegas, then Za’ara must be alphas. So he was being given away finally. He wondered how cruel his new master would be, wondered if it was possible to be more cruel than Cornelia. Consumed by his thoughts, he only half-listened when Reyit explained that the blue outfit he was handed was from his own country of Faerghus. It halfway resembled the colors and tassels of the Goddess’s priests, and when he was finally dressed in it, he supposed it only made sense that it would show so much of his pale flesh, to show off any ‘assets’ a heat-bitch like himself could offer.

He was not allowed to wear his furs, not yet; even his tunic, breeches, and boots were taken away as Aine and Reyit marched him back into the waiting crowds of the Duscur people, towards the center of the four fires (‘north, south, east, and west,’ Reyit explained) where his Za’ara, his master, his owner,  _ Dedue  _ awaited him.

The scent struck him before the view. It was so deep and strong, an attractive musk that surely any omega would desire back in Faerghus. Of course, it only brought trembling terror to Dimitri’s knees as he laid his one eye upon him; the man he’d seen the night before stood there, consuming his vision with his size, devouring his senses with the intensity of his green-eyed gaze. He barely remembered being placed before him, he barely remembered the words that were spoken above a sword and shield. All he could do was stare in fear and shake like a dandelion as their bonding ritual began.

What was it to be? The Duscur were savages, Dimitri knew that, all of Faerghus knew… Would Dedue rip apart his clothes right here in front of the crowds and devour him? Turn him on his stomach and brutally ravage him until he sobbed for mercy? Would he just  **_breed_ ** him in front of the roaring audience until he was bloody and exhausted and ruined?

He could scarcely breathe as the green-eyed man reached down and took his hands, gently closing Dimitri’s grip over the hilt of the sacred sword of Oland. And instead of any of those horrifying things, Dedue knelt with the shield in his grip, head bowed and said, his voice rolling from his tongue like the mountains stretched over Duscur’s borders,

“I pledge myself to protect and serve you in the guidance of the Goddesses, Prince Dimitri, my Favored One, my Oland… take me, if I please you, as your humble Za’ar.”

  
  



End file.
